WILLIAM KENTRIDGE | 74° Edizione Ravello Festival 2026 | Villa Rufolo, Ravello

Bienal Del Agua: An alliance between art, society, and commitment. Under the evocative theme “The Traces of Water” the biennial unfolds as an open and welcoming encounter within the worlds of art and culture, built around an interdisciplinary project that brings together Arts, Science, and Technology. This interdisciplinary approach expresses excellence in creativity across multiple fields—painting, public sculpture, installations, performances, photography, video, and technology—moving beyond rigid museographic conventions to engage with the city and its diverse audiences and social sectors. Activities take place in public and private spaces, as well as in symbolic and institutional sites. Water is approached not only as a natural resource or environmental element, but as an anthropological symbol, cultural memory, technological structure, spiritual resonance, and a contemporary ethical challenge—within the framework of a new humanism that calls for rethinking the relationship between humanity, nature, and innovation.

• Centro de Congresos de Estoril, Cascais, Portugal
• 17 luglio – 6 settembre 2026

Following a major restoration, Ettore Spalletti’s Fountain in the square in front of the Pescara Courthouse has been returned to the public. Inaugurated in 2004, the work is one of the city’s most significant examples of contemporary public art: a 15 x 9 metre ellipse made of Zimbabwean black granite, where a thin layer of water reflects the sky, light, and surrounding architecture. The fountain embodies Spalletti’s exploration of the relationship between colour, form, and space through the interplay of black, blue, and light. Its shape recalls the “Disegno” motif that runs throughout the artist’s practice, while a pink onyx element introduces a further poetic and contemplative dimension.

• Fontana Pescara, Italy

Gli Anni. Capitolo 3 is an ongoing exhibition project exploring the history of art in Naples from the late twentieth century to the present. The Madre Museum's collection is presented alongside major public and private collections, bringing together key works that reflect significant artistic moments and developments in the region. Inspired by Annie Ernaux's novel The Years, the project views artworks as repositories of collective memory, preserving not only artistic research but also the historical and cultural contexts in which they were created. Like memory itself, the exhibition unfolds through interconnected episodes rather than a linear chronology, with its third chapter expanding across several spaces of the museum, from the entrance to the second floor.

• Museo Madre, Naples, Italy
• 9 luglio – 5 ottobre 2026

The Ravello Foundation, in collaboration with the Lia Rumma Gallery, presents William Kentridge, an exhibition of works by an artist for whom music, theatre and image are part of a single creative process – opening on 3 July 2026 at Villa Rufolo and continuing until 5 September as part of the 74th edition of the Ravello Festival. One of the most profound and constitutive aspects of William Kentridge's research is the relationship between drawing, sound, word, music, opera and theatre. Throughout his work, the mark is never merely a fixed image, but action, rhythm, a trace in motion, appearance and erasure. It emerges, disappears, returns, transforms into sequence, into voice, into visual score. Drawings, videos, installations, sculptures and works tied to the artist's scenic and musical dimension make up an itinerary that unfolds across the villa's rooms and the garden designed by Francis Nevile Reid in the 19th century, in a continuous dialogue between architectural space and open landscape. Ravello, a city long tied to great European culture and to the memory of Richard Wagner, welcomes an artist for whom music, theatre and image are part of a single creative process. In this context, the exhibition takes its place within the history of the Festival as a reflection on the relationship between vision and listening, gesture and voice, mark and time.

• Villa Rufolo
• 4 luglio – 5 settembre 2026

The sixth edition of giardino project, titled "Seme • Pianta • Fiore • Frutto", is dedicated to the artistic research of Michele Guido, whose practice brings together botany, archaeobotany, ecology, rural architecture, and contemporary art. Curated by Giuseppe Amedeo Arnesano, this edition offers a critical reading of the agricultural landscape as a dispersed garden—a living organism shaped by human labor, spontaneous ecologies, vernacular architecture, and layered memories. Structured around the natural cycle "Seme • Pianta • Fiore • Frutto" as a process of knowledge, the project reflects on the relationship between land, cultivation, and imagination, transforming the Salento countryside into a space for observation and research. The project unfolds across two events: 22 July at the garden of Bibliò – Community Library in Trepuzzi and 25 July at the historic Torre Pinta Medieval Masseria, near Otranto. Both events conclude with site-specific sound performances by Roberto Laterza (iii) in Trepuzzi and Alessandro Chieppa at Torre Pinta.

• Trepuzzi - Otranto
• 22 – 25 luglio 2026

The Balloon Museum, the global atelier for inflatable contemporary art, presents SNOWY / WINDY / SPRING ON THE PLANET Z, a landmark new commission by Marina Abramović and her first work created with inflatable materials. Developed in close collaboration with the Balloon Museum's engineering and design teams, the immersive installation transforms light, air, paper, and inflatables into a dreamlike landscape inspired by imagined childhood memories and extraterrestrial visions. Visitors move through a field of shoulder-high inflatable grass while floating balloon "snowflakes" and diffused light create an ever-changing, ethereal environment. The project marks a significant new chapter in Abramović's practice, extending her long-standing exploration of air and breath into the realm of large-scale inflatable sculpture. The work will premiere in July 2026 at the Balloon Museum's New York flagship in the Tin Building at the Seaport, as part of a group exhibition.

• Ballon Museum, New York, USA
• 14 luglio 2026