EXHIBITIONS

Museums and archaeological sites in Rome, including the Vatican Museums, are open only to visitors with the covid Green Pass or its equivalent. Most venues require advance booking and the wearing of masks is obligatory. Weekend visits to the more popular sites such as the Colosseum and the Pantheon must be booked at least one day ahead. For visiting details check websites in advance.

CY TWOMBLY: SOUVENIRS OF TIME

30 OCT-13 NOV

The Gagosian Gallery presents an exhibition of photographs by Cy Twombly, the celebrated American painter who died in Rome in 2011. The show features photographs taken by Twombly throughout his career of his studios and domestic interiors and of classical sculptures. The images span a 60-year period between the US and Italy, chronicling locations central to the artist’s life and work, from the 1950s through the 2000s, including his ateliers in Rome, Bassano in Teverina and Gaeta. The gallery says the images also show his paintings and sculpture in varying states of completion, offering insights into his working process. Gagosian Gallery, Via Francesco Crispi 16, tel. 0642086498, www.gagosian.com.

Cy Twombly photos at the Gagosian.

KLIMT: LA SECESSIONE E L’ITALIA

27 OCT-27 MARCH

Palazzo Braschi presents an exhibition of paintings by Gustav Klimt, including Portrait of a Lady, which went missing for almost 23 years after its theft from a gallery in Piacenza. The painting was stolen in 1997 before being rediscovered in the gallery’s garden, in mysterious circumstances, in 2019. The works on show feature some of the Austrian artist’s masterpieces from the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, the Klimt Foundation and public and private collections such as the Neue Galerie Graz. Highlights among the paintings, sculptures and drawings on display include Judith I, Lady in White, Friends I (The Sisters), Amalie Zuckerkandl and The Bride. The fivemonth exhibition will focus on the artist’s relationship with Italy and the influence he had on other artists working in the country. Museo di Roma, Piazza Navona 2, tel. 060608, www.museodiroma.it.

INFERNO

15 OCT-9 JAN

The Scuderie del Quirinale marks the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante Alighieri with an exhibition based on the first book of The Divine Comedy. The show comprises more than 200 artworks on loan from 80 museums, public collections and private collections from Italy, the Vatican and across Europe. Inferno documents hell-related iconography from the Middle Ages to the present day, in what is hailed as the first major art exhibition dedicated to this theme. Curated by Jean Clair, the show will take visitors on a terrifying visual journey into the depths of hell, as imagined by artists through the centuries, accompanied by the words of Dante. These visions range from the tormented and nightmarish to the romanticised, from Mediaeval to Baroque, up to psychoanalytic interpretations from the 20th century. Scuderie del Quirinale, Via XXIV Maggio 16, www.scuderiequirinale.it.

Portrait of a Lady by Klimt at Museo di Roma.

TOKUHIRO KAWAI AND JEFFREY CHONG WANG

16 OCT-16 NOV

Dorothy Circus, a prominent gallery specialising in international popsurrealist art, presents a double exhibition by two artists: Beijingraised and Canada-based Jeffrey Chong Wang and Japan’s Tokuhiro Kawai. The gallery says that Kawai draws from classical Renaissance themes to elaborate surreal fairytales while Chong Wang gains inspiration from Romanticism to create cinematographic reflections. Dorothy Circus Gallery, Via dei Pettinari 76, www.dorothycircusgallery.it.

SEBASTIAO SALGADO

1 OCT-13 FEB

The celebrated photojournalist Sebastião Salgado provides a black and white photographic journey through the Brazilian Amazon, after he spent six years capturing images of the forest, the rivers, the mountains and the people who live there. MAXXI, Italy’s national museum of 21st-century arts, presents Salgado’s 200 photographs against a soundscape of sounds - recorded in the forests and created by Jean-Michel Jarre - feauring the rustling of trees, birdsong, the

shrieks of animals, and the roar of waterfalls. The exhibition highlights the fragility of this ecosystem, showing that in the protected areas where the indigenous communities live the forest has suffered almost no damage. MAXXI, Via Guido Reni 4A, www.maxxi.art.

RIA LUSSI: WHO IS AFRAID OF PINK?

30 SEPT-13 NOV

Maja Arte Contemporanea presents a show by the Rome-based Milan artist Ria Lussi, the final stage of the gallery’s two-year cycle of exhibitions dedicated to female artists. With her collection of ironic and playful self-portraits, Lussi challenges the current gender disparity through permutations of her “Rose” series painted on round-shaped canvases. Maja Arte Contemporanea, Via di Monserrato 30, www. majartecontemporanea.com.

ERWIN WURM

25 SEPT-14 NOV

Rome’s Via Veneto has been filled with large-scale artworks by the Austrian artist Erwin Wurm in an open-air exhibition that opened on 25 September. The elegant street, synonymous with Rome’s ‘dolce vita’ era of in the 1960s, is currently home to 14 installations thanks to the Via Veneto Contemporanea project, curated by Catherine Löwe. Wurm’s semi-abstract sculptures, which present mundane objects in a new surprising light, are dotted along Via Veneto and in front of the Aurelian walls. Framed by the ancient arch of the Porta Pinciana is Big Mutter, a large hot water bottle with legs, while other pieces include Fat House and sculptures of suitcases with legs. The exhibition, which runs until 14 November, is Wurm’s first urban installation in Rome.

PRIMA, DONNA: MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE

21 SEPT-27 OCT

The Museo di Roma in Trastevere presents an exhibition dedicated to the pioneering American photojournalist Margaret BourkeWhite (1904-1971). Bourke-White was the first known female war correspondent and the first woman to be allowed to work in combat zones during world war two. The exhibition comprises more than 100 images from the Life archive in New York, documenting the American photographer’s unconventional vision and life. The photographs on display include soldiers in world war two, aerial shots of American cities, portraits of Stalin and Gandhi, apartheid in South Africa and racial segregation in the US. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of public meetings and discussions on the themes of photography and female identity. Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Piazza S. Egidio 1/b, tel. 060608, www.museodiroma.trastevere.it.

DAMIEN HIRST AT GALLERIA BORGHESE

8 JUNE-7 NOV

Galleria Borghese – home to masterpieces by Bernini, Canova and Caravaggio – presents the works of contemporary British artist Damien Hirst in a new exhibition titled Archaeology Now. The show includes more than 80 works from Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable series, featuring monumental and small-scale sculptures made from bronze, rock crystal, coral and Carrara marble. Also on display in the Rome exhibition, curated by Anna Coliva and Mario Codognato, are Hirst’s Colour Space paintings, exhibited in Italy for the first time. Held with the support of luxury fashion house Prada, the exhibition will see Hirst’s colossal sculpture, Hydra and Kali, displayed outdoors in the Secret Garden of the Uccelliera. Galleria Borghese says the installation stems from Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, exhibited for the first time in 2017 in Venice at Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana. Retracing his colourful career, the Rome retrospective highlights the multimedia approach of the British artist who is known for his provocative art charged with social commentary. Reservations obligatory. Piazzale Scipione Borghese 5, tel. 068413979, www. galleriaborghese.beniculturali.it.

ALL ABOUT BANKSY: EXHIBITION 2

5 MAY-9 JAN

Chiostro del Bramante presents ALL about BANKSY, a new exhibition dedicated to the anonymous British street artist whose powerful, satirical and thought-provoking murals are celebrated around the world. The show, which follows an earlier Banksy exhibition, features about 250 artworks from private collections. Chiostro del Bramante, Via Arco della Pace 5, tel. 0668809035, www. chiostrodelbramante.it.

Gandhi, Pune, 1946, by Margaret Bourke-White at Museo di Roma in Trastevere.