What to see for ART CITY 2024

Updated on 15 January 2024 From Bologna Welcome

If you’re looking for the must-visit exhibitions of Art City 2024, this is the article for you!

But first, now that Art City 2024 is rich of events and you can discover them all on the official digital map that includes, among others, ASCOM contemporary art galleries and other independent exhibition spaces.

Here is a list of the institutional exhibitions of the Art City 2024 program in Bologna

5 Special Projects

ExhibitionsMorandi's Objects - Special project Art City 202430 January 2024 - 25 February 2024Piazza Maggiore - IndipendenzaFree entryAccessible

Cinema and theaterVirgilio Sieni. Bright energy - Special project Art City 202401 February 2024 - 04 February 2024University districtFree entry

ExhibitionsMary Ellen Bartley: MORANDI’S BOOKS - Special project Art City 202431 January 2024 - 07 July 2024Railway station

ExhibitionsTacita Dean. STILL LIFE. The studio of Giorgio Morandi - Special project Art City 202401 February 2024 - 04 February 2024Free entry< 50 Km from Bologna

ExhibitionsMark Vernon. Saturnine Orbit - Special project Art City 202403 February 2024 - 04 February 2024Free entry

ACCADEMIA DI BELLE ARTI, 1-4 February, Via delle Belle Arti 54

ART TALK CITY: talk between artists, curators and teachers coordinated by Maria Rita Bentini. The program is scheduled from February 1 to 4 at 10am in Aula Magna.

ART CITY WHITE NIGHT, 3 February

This year, the white night organized by Bologna Fiere will be on the 3rd of February. The audience will also be able to enjoy the artistic proposal spread around the city in the evening hours.

ALCHEMILLA, Palazzo Vizzani, 26 January – 16 March, Via Santo Stefano 43

“The Painting Race”, an exhibition and performance project by the trio of anonymous Italian artists CANEMORTO, curated by Antonio Grulli. Visitable from the 26th of January to the 16th of March.

BIBLIOTECA ITALIANA DELLE DONNE, 1 – 4 February, Via del Piombo 5

“Chiara Fumai: Inviting Evil Spirits” it’s a dedication of the Traditum east association to Chiara Fumai, a feminist artist who passed away in 2017 at the age of 39.

LA CINETECA DI BOLOGNA, 1-4 February, various places

Continues its investigation on the relationship between cinema and visual arts, promoting at Cinema Lumière and at Modernissimo the ART CITY Cinema festival: you can find the full schedule on the official website

ESPRIT NOUVEAU, 1st February – 3rd March, Piazza della Costituzione 11

Opus Novum#6 – Luisa Lambri, “L’Esprit Nouveau” curated by Simone Menegoi: photo exhibition by Luisa Lambri.

IL SOTTOPASSO DI VIA RIZZOLI, until the 25th of February

The new exhibition space curated by the Cineteca di Bologna, hosts the exhibition “Bologna Fotografata” which will be accompanied, from February 3 to February 25, by the exhibition “World Press Photo 2023”, promoted in collaboration with Foto Image and World Press Photo Foundation. The exhibition will consist of the shots awarded -in the past year- from the most prestigious international photojournalistic competition.

SALA URBANA, COLLEZIONI COMUNALI D’ARTE, until February 4, Piazza Maggiore

The exhibition “IMMANENTE. Faenza’s art reshaped by water”, curated by Matteo Zauli and Eva Degl’Innocenti, wants to be a snapshot of the dramatic flooding that on the night of May 16 invaded much of the city of Faenza with mud, overwhelming the existence of places, things and people.

CUBO and THE UNIPOL GROUP MUSEUM, 1st of February- 11th of May 2024, Piazza Sergio Vieira de Mello, 3/5

The complex and articulated exhibition project of das.07 Tempi Nuovi features two exhibitions of Stefano Non and a series of meetings centered on the relationship between artistic creation and technological aesthetics, curated by Claudio Musso.

AUDITORIUM DAMSLAB, February 2nd, Piazzetta P.P. Pasolini 5/b

On Friday, February 2, from 9 p.m. to 11.30 p.m., the meeting “Sound poetry in the second week of Performance”, curated by Silvia Grandi.

LABORATORIO DEGLI ANGELI, January 27 – February 10, Via Degli Angeli 32

“Atelier dell’Errore – Idolo” curated by Leonardo Regano, is a site-specific intervetion of Atelier dell’Errore (AdE) founded by the artist Luca Santiago Mora. “IDOLO” presents a dedicated installation that brings together the complexity of their different expressive languages: drawing, video, photography and sculpture.

MAMBO – SALA DELLE CIMINIERE, February 1st – May 5th, Via Don Giovanni Minzoni 14

The exhibition “Ludovica Carbotta. Very Well, on My Own”, curated by Lorenzo Balbi with the assistance of Sabrina Samorì, presents more than 100 works trancing the multifaced production of the Turin-based artist focused on exploring the concept of imagination.

MAMBO – PROJECT ROOM, January 26th – May 26th, Via Don Giovanni Minzoni 14

“Lynda Benglis and Properzia de’ Rossi: Sculptors of capricious and dexterous ingenuity”, an exhibition project curated by Lorenzo Balbi that establishes a dialogue between Properzia de’ Rossi and Lynda Benglis.
Properzia de’Rossi was a Bolognese artist born in 1490 and who died in 1530, considered as the first woman sculptor in the history of art as well as the only woman to have a biography inside Giorgio Vasari’s Lives. Lynda Benglis was a highly influential American artist born in 1941 and considered one of the most important living sculptors.

EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT'S MAMBO, January 28 – February 11, Via Don Giovanni Minzoni 14

The solo exhibition of Adele Dipasquale curated by Artierranti. The work of the artist focuses on sound and non-communication as grounds to go beyond to unhinge old mechanisms of power and imposed normativity. “I swallowed a butterfly” investigates the butterfly alphabet as a non-conventional communication system.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL CIVIC MUSEUM, January 26 – February 25, Via dell’Archiginnasio 2

The exhibition “Indispensabile” by Giovanni Morbin, curated by Daniele Capra, is made of around 50 works of a sculptural and documentary nature made from the mid 1980’s to the present, as well as new performances created for this occasion.

MEDIEVAL CIVIC MUSEUM, January 26 – March 3, Via Manzoni 4

“Contatti Indicibili”, a bipersonal exhibition by Giovanni Caimmi and Giulia Dall’Olio curated by Maria Chiara Wang. The exhibition project was born as a manifesto for a return to perception, the rediscovery of that set of sensoriality, sensitivity and instinctiveness as fundamental elements to build a dialogue with the work.

INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM AND DAVIA BARGELLINI GALLERY, January 25 – February 11, Via Strada Maggiore 44

The new sculptures that Pegah Pasyar proposes in the exhibition “Mnemosine” curated by Marco Baldassari, bring the inner look back to the memory and remambrance, to a moment where torment and happiness coexist.

JEWISH MUSEUM, February 1st – March 17, Via Valdonica 1/5

“Uova e tramezzi” is the trigger of the project that Giuseppe De Mattia develops in the spaces of the permanent collection, curated by Gabriele Tosi. In a place dedicated to historical memory, the artist drops an apparently minor narrative that, wondrous and concrete, highlights the role of images and words in the construction of memories.

OPIFICIO DELLE ACQUE, February 1st – February 10, Via Monaldo Calari 15

“Torna, canale” is a site-specific project of Luca Campestri, curated by Olivia Teglia. The title evoks a return, an unveiling: the work generates a retrospective, hypnagogic and mental narrative somewhere between the imaginary and reality.

INTERNATIONAL AND LIBRARY MUSIC MUSEUM until 4 February, Strada Maggiore 34

"In art, Milva" curated by Anna Maria Lorusso and Lucio Spaziante. Maria Ilva Biolcati, aka Milva, has traversed over fifty years of Italian history as a protagonist.

ORATORY OF SAN FILIPPO NERI, 30 January - 11 February, via Manzoni 5

Luca Monterastelli's installation "Storia di un onest'uomo", curated by Alessandro Rabottini, rewrites the objects that belong to the place, creating a new landscape, in which the elements accumulate in barricades, transforming it into a scenario reminiscent of a refuge capable of satisfying our need for protection from a world that is always close to collapse.

PROMENADE BOLOGNA - ART

As part of Art City 2024, whose 5 Special Projects are dedicated to the painter Giorgio Morandi, Promenade Bologna, the city's pocket guide, also pays homage to the artist by portraying him on the cover, intent on working in his Casa-Bottega.

Curious to know more? Read Promenade Bologna

PIAZZA COSTITUZIONE (ENTRANCE FROM ARTE FIERA), February 1 to February 4

The work entrusted to Alberto Garutti consists of a stone slab at the main entrance of the fairgrounds bearing the inscription, in Italian and in English “Tutti i passi che ho fatto nella mia vita mi hanno portato qui, ora” / “Every step I have taken in my life has led me here now”

PALAZZO BENTIVOGLIO, until the 25th of February, Via del Borgio di San Pietro 1

Palazzo Bentivoglio celebrates the great painter and decorator Felice Giani, on the occasion of the bicentennial of his death, with the excursus “Felicissimo Giani”, curated by Tommaso Pasquali, through testimonies of his endless graphic production, as well as his interventions on the walls and ceilings of the palaces where he was called to in Rome, Faenza and Bologna.

GARAGE BENTIVOGLIO, May 31st – February 24th, Via del Borgo di San Pietro 3/A

Agostino Iacurci, “Ruinenlust, 2024”. The imaginary and the worlds that the artist inhabits and builds have numerous resemblances with Felice Giani’s work: both of them are often based on the modes and forms of picta architecture, which are mixed and enriched by their different obsessions.

PALAZZO BONCOMPAGNI, February 1st – April 7th, Via Del Monte 8

The exhibition “Mimmo Paladino in Palazzo del Papa” curated by Silvia Evangelisti in collaboration with the artist, presents important works, paintings and sculptures of great dimensions, documenting his research of the past twenty years.

PALAZZO FAVA, until February 11, Via Manzoni 2

“Concetto Pozzati XXL”, the first anthological exhibition of the artist realised in a museum after his death, curated by Maura Pozzati. Around fifty works – some unpublished or not exhibited in a long time – between large paintings, three-dimensional works and works on paper, all from the Concetto Pozzati Archive.

DIPARTIMENTO DI SCIENZE GIURIDICHE DELL’ALMA MATER STUDIORUM, UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA – PALAZZO MALVEZZI, February 2 – February 9, Via Zamboni 22

The exhibition of Emilio Isgrò “Deletion of Codes - Civil and Penal”, curated by Cristina Mazzantini, Lorenzo Balbi and Marco Bazzini presents legal texts, in particular the Civil code and Penal code, on which Isgrò intervened in his own expressive way, by erasing parts of the text, in order to offer a different reflection on the meaning of living together.

PALAZZO MALVEZZI DE’ MEDICI, February 2 – February 4, Via Zamboni 13

The works of Reyhaneh Alikhani, Ania Bonacini, Lisa Martignoni, Ruichen Xi, Qing Zhang, Xuan Zhanga, presented in the collective exhibition “SAVE YOURSELF” curated by Vanna Romualdi in Palazzo Malvezzi de’ Medici, headquarters of the Città metropolitana di Bologna and city extension of The Museo della Civilità Contadina of San Marino di Bentivoglio, talk about the materials taken away from the everyday life.

FONDAZIONE DEL MONTE DI BOLOGNA E RAVENNA, January 26 – March 17, Via delle Donzelle 2

“Greta Schödl. Time doesn’t exist”, the title of the exhibition curated by Silvia Evangelisti and Valentina Rossi refers to the non-existence of the concept of time. Moreover, for the exhbition the performance “Tubo” will take place on Saturday 3 February at 12:30 p.m. in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna.

PIAZZA LIBER PARADISUS, from the 31st of January

At the crossroads between Via Tiarini and Via Fioravanti where the new headquarters of Bologna City Council are located, the large sculpture of an orangutan, three metres high in bronze, work of Davide Rivalta, an artist of international renown who has long been dealing with subjects from the animal world recreated in great dimensions, will be installed on the 31st of January.

PALAZZO DE’ TOSCHI, January 30 – February 18, Piazza Minghetti 4/D

“Abandon your eyes”, a special project by Patrick Tuttofuoco, one of the best known and most appreciated Italian artists of his generation. The exhibition, curated by Davide Ferri presents emblematic shapes and modes of the artist’s practice from the very beginning.

PIO ISTITUTO DELLE SORDOMUTE POVERE, February 1st – February 4th, Via della Braina 11

Meredith Monk’s installation “Bloodline Shrine”, curated by Caterina Molteni, reflects on the re-evaluation of the voice and the body as a material presence beyond the linguistic and verbal component of communication.

TEATRO DUSE, February 3, Via Cartoleria 42

On Saturday 3 February, at 11:45 p.m., Duse Theatre will host a public meeting between the artist Fabrizio Plessi and Mambo director Lorenzo Balbi, taking as a starting point the reading of the work “Energy – Sipario d’autore” installed on the Via Cartoleria stage

TEATRO SAN LEONARDO, February 3 and 4, Via San Vitale 63

For this year edition of Marca Corona per l’Arte, the artist Stefano Arienti has created the narrative path “Opera Aperta”, curated by Maria Vittoria Baravelli, which winds between the inside and the outside of the company.

VILLA DELLE ROSE, January 28 – March 24, Via Saragozza 228/230

The solo exhibition “Sergio Lombardo 1960-1970” wants to shed a new light on the initial decade of the career of the roman artist and psychologist Sergio Lombardo, one of the main protagonists which have renewed the European and international artistic language.

CENTRO ARTI E SCIENZE GOLINELLI, February 2nd – June 2nd, Via Paolo Nanni Costa 14

The collective exhibition “Marino’s favourite” curated by Fondazione Golinelli presents forty works by important modern and contemporary artists from the private collection of Marino Golinelli and his wife Paola

CIMITERO MONUMENTALE DELLA CERTOSA, February 1st – February 4th, Via della Certosa 18
DAS – DISPOSITIVO ARTI SPERIMENTALI, February 1st – February 4th, Via del Porto 11/2

“The last Lamentation”, the video work by Valentina Medda, inspired by funreal mournings in the Mediterranean, will be projected in the spaces of the Certosa in Bologna, in collaboration with Museo del Risorgimento and MAMbo. The early stages of the work will be presented in the same days at DAS – Dispositivo Arti Sperimentali, within the group exhibition “Inside”, curated by Anna De Manincor, Lele Marcojanni and Maria Paola Zedda.

FONDAZIONE COLLEGIO ARTISTICO VENTUROLI, February 3rd, Via Centotrecento 4

On Saturday 3 February, from 4pm to 11 pm, the Fondazione Collegio Artistico Venturoli presents “Open Studio”, exhibition project showcasing for the first time, and exclusively, the artistic research of the five young talents who won the prestigious artistic residency that began in the autumn of 2023.

Art City 2024 full programme

official website