The exhibitions to see in March in Italy

Spring is still a bit far away, and the days are damp and rainy. What can we do if we don't want to stay at home in front of Netflix? Why not visit one of the many interesting exhibitions around Italy? There's a perfect option for every taste. For photography and Paris enthusiasts, there's Brassaï, and those who prefer abstract art can take a trip to Venice, where Palazzo Grassi hosts works by Julie Mehretu. In Bologna, there's a large exhibition dedicated to witches, while there are only a few days left to see the glass works of Carlo Scarpa in Oderzo or the works of Paolo Greco in Catania. Curious?

Here are the exhibitions to see in March in Italy.

Witchcraft - Bologna

The exhibition opens by immersing visitors in a real witchcraft trial held in an Inquisition tribunal in 1539 and closes with the experience of writing in a real Book of Shadows. In between, there's a rich path of documents, fetishes, and ritual tools dedicated to the world of Witches and magic, including about 300 prints, sculptures, paintings, and engravings, some signed by the greatest engravers of the nineteenth century. The exhibition also features precious exorcism manuals and historical treaties from the Teresiana Library of Mantua, such as the Malleus Maleficarum, the manual on hunting witches most used by the church, which indicated the punishments for those accused of witchcraft. From the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, Cornwall, come ancient cauldrons, fetishes, amulets, talismans, and magic wands, while from the Museum of Civilizations in Rome comes an incredible collection of amulets.

Title: Witchcraft. Iconography, facts, and scandals about the subversive women in history

When: until June 16, 2024

Where: Palazzo Pallavicini, Bologna

Brassaï - Milan

In collaboration with the Brassaï Estate and curated by Philippe Ribeyrolles, the Milanese exhibition transports visitors into the universe of the great photographer through more than 200 vintage prints. Born in Hungary and adopted by Paris, Brassaï, the pseudonym of Gyula Halász, documented with now iconic shots the nightlife of artists, musicians, and eccentric characters who populated the Parisian cultural world in the '20s, providing a vivid and authentic portrait, made of lights and shadows, of the Ville Lumière: from working-class neighborhoods to the great symbolic monuments, from fashion to portraits of artist friends like Henry Miller, Dalí, and Picasso, to graffiti and the atmosphere in nightclubs.

Title: Brassaï the eye of Paris

When: until June 2, 2024

Where: Palazzo Reale, Milan

Miranda July - Milan

Hosted at the spaces of the Osservatorio di Fondazione Prada, the exhibition covers three decades of the career of the American artist, director, and writer Miranda July, from the '90s to today, through short films, performances, and installations. The common thread of all the projects is a gradual transformation towards the sublime and introspection. As Mia Locks, the curator of the exhibition, emphasizes, "July's work explores a range of human relationships and forms of intimacy, questioning established hierarchies and conventional power dynamics. The artist adopts a decidedly feminist position that permeates the various media used throughout her career." Miranda July: New Society also includes the new work F.A.M.I.L.Y., Falling Apart Meanwhile I Love You, a multi-channel installation documenting a year-long collaboration between July and seven performers on Instagram.

Title: Miranda July: New Society

When: from March 7 to October 14, 2024

Where: Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan

Jon Rafman - Rome

Basement Roma dedicates a site-specific retrospective to Jon Rafman, including a station where visitors can immerse themselves in his video works. This provides an opportunity to explore the work of the Canadian artist focused on the emotional, social, and existential impact of technology on contemporary life. Rafman draws from Internet culture, the virtual world, and video games to create surreal landscapes that convey a constant sense of loss and alienation. The result is simultaneously kitschy, melancholic, and unsettling.

Title: Jon Rafman - Player Character

When: until May 23, 2024

Where: Basement Roma, Rome

Carlo Scarpa - Oderzo

The Venetian Carlo Scarpa is known for his essential and elegant architectural interventions, strongly influenced by Oriental aesthetics, but not as much for his works in design. Those interested have until March 17 to discover them, as the exhibition True Glass. Carlo Scarpa at Palazzo Foscolo in Oderzo will close. The rooms of the building host about 30 works that testify to Scarpa's passion for Murano glassmaking. These are pieces that have not been exhibited for a long time, created by the master glassmakers of Cappellin and Venini based on designs by the renowned architect, representing the different techniques and processes designed by Carlo Scarpa.

Title: True Glass. Carlo Scarpa

When: until March 17, 2024

Where: Palazzo Foscolo, Oderzo

Julie Mehretu - Venice

From March 17, 2024, to January 6, 2025, Palazzo Grassi presents a major exhibition project dedicated to the work of Julie Mehretu with over sixty paintings and engravings created by the American artist over a period of twenty-five years. Alongside Mehretu's abstract, sensual, and emotional compositions, there are also works created by artists who are part of a close circle of friends of the painter or personalities who have influenced her, such as Nairy Baghramian, Huma Bhabha, Robin Coste Lewis, Tacita Dean, David Hammons, Paul Pfeiffer, and Jessica Rankin. The result is a dialogue between painting, poetry, sculpture, cinema, voice, and music.

Title: Julie Mehretu. Ensemble

When: from March 17, 2024, to January 6, 2025

Where: Palazzo Grassi, Venice

Chiara Camoni - Milan

The space of the Shed at Pirelli HangarBicocca hosts the largest corpus of works ever presented by Chiara Camoni. The exhibition poetically highlights how the artist moves from drawing to plant prints, from video to sculpture, to ceramics, mixing small common objects and organic materials. Clay, branches, and flowers give life to an enchanted atmosphere that echoes in Camoni's words when she says, "when I proceed with the clay strips, from bottom to top, I repeat one of the oldest gestures in the history of humanity, probably the first sculptural form: a hollow space and a convex one, a full and an empty one. I feel like building the entire universe."

Title: Calling to Gather. Sisters. Moths and Flames. Lionesses' Bones, Stones, and Serpentesses

When: until July 21, 2024

Where: Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan

Paolo Greco - Catania

"Imagine a studio, a house from the early years of the last century, ancient and porous walls illuminated by neon lights, the chemical smell of color is softened by the damp green of the untamed garden overlooking the room. An artist performs subtle plastic variations, turning tires and inner tubes into vibrating musical instruments. The music is the overpowering one of the Seventies that scratches thoughts. The surface tension of the material merges with the energy of the music. Paolo Greco moves confidently in the atmosphere of his studio, between cumbersome memories and tension towards the future, shaping his thoughts on rubber." With these words, Denise Sardo, art critic and independent curator, describes the exhibition dedicated to Paolo Greco at the Galleria Carta Bianca in Catania. Visitors can see how a tire emptied of its original function can become a means of reflection on the concepts of emptiness and pressure.

Title: Paolo Greco - Zero Pascal

When: until March 15, 2024

Where: Galleria Carta Bianca, Catania

Lina Selander - Naples

The Tiziana Di Caro gallery hosts the third exhibition in its spaces, featuring a series of video installations and a series of cyanotypes by Lina Selander, created between 2020 and 2024. Among these is the installation Conductor, a video projection on cyanotype where felines can be seen moving around an artificial pond. The shots, originally filmed in Super 8, overlapping with the underlying image create a hallucinated and fascinating effect.

Title: Lina Selander - The Eye is the First Circle

When: until March 30, 2024

Where: Tiziana Di Caro Gallery, Naples

(Un)fair - Milan

From March 3 to 5, (Un)fair returns to Milan, the event that aims to bring contemporary art closer to everyday life. The spaces of Superstudio Maxi host works by well-known names and emerging talents, outside the mainstream, to discover, along with artistic performances, musical experiences, and stimulating conversations. The common thread of this edition is the desire for art that drives collecting.

Title: (Un)fair

When: from March 3 to 5, 2024

Where: Superstudio Maxi, Milan