Gallery sights in Milan
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Fondazione Prada
The Fondazione Prada produces two grand-scale, solo shows each year in an old warehouse that’s impressive enough to give you ‘art butterflies’ on its own. The likes of Anish Kapoor and Louise Bourgeois, or mid-career mavericks such as Francesco Vezzoli and Nathalie Djurberg, do the space justice. Tours of the foundation’s {{book-poi|9781741049947|1458138|new space}} ([tel] 02 535 70 9201; Largo Isarco 2; [hrs] by appointment; [metro] Lodi), due to open in 2011, are held periodically. A wander in the world’s most impressive stock room is worth the trip alone, but the official attraction is Rem Koolhaas’ obsessively detailed maquettes and 2D renderings of the former brandy …
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Prometeo Gallery
First up is the Prometeo Gallery specialising in screen-based art. Further on, the multilevel gallery Massimo de Carlo is entered via a bridge that gives a full view of the stockroom innards. This Via Ventura pioneer is a must-see, for the stellar line-up of artists - Diego Perrone, Simone Berti, Pei-Ming Yan - as well as the architecturally thoughtful space. In the same complex is the ever-challenging Zero and Art Book Milano. Via Massimiano is home to Francesca Minini and Klerkx, both showing intriguing new-generation work.
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New Space (Fondazione Prada)
The Fondazione Prada produces two grand-scale, solo shows each year in an old warehouse that’s impressive enough to give you ‘art butterflies’ on its own. The likes of Anish Kapoor and Louise Bourgeois, or mid-career mavericks such as Francesco Vezzoli and Nathalie Djurberg, do the space justice. Tours of the foundation’s new space, due to open in 2011, are held periodically. A wander in the world’s most impressive stock room is worth the trip alone, but the official attraction is Rem Koolhaas’ obsessively detailed maquettes and 2D renderings of the former brandy factory’s brave new future.
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Galleria Lia Rumma
In an inversion of north-south convention, this is the Milanese outpost of Lia Rumma’s Neapolitan gallery. An early collector of Arte Povera, Rumma’s curatorial vision is legend and her international stable impressive: Marina Abromovic, Anslem Kiefer, Andreas Gursky and Peter Halley. She also shows high-profile Italians - look out for Ottonella Mocelli, Franco Scognamiglio and increasingly queasy-making Vanessa Beecroft.
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Galleria Corsoveneziaotto
Facelifts are unnecessary in Milan, because this gallery keeps eyebrows permanently up with sensations like Wim Delvoye's recent showcase of Milan's favourite media: pork. One whiff of his exquisite inlaid floor reveals that it was made entirely of Milanese salami, and taxidermied pigs tattooed with Louis Vuitton logos seem tailor-made to scandalise fashion-conscious Milan.
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Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea
While most downtown galleries bank on international blue-chip artists, this plucky upstart still gambles on emerging Italian artists - and when it works, the payoff is that much greater (and the prices are better, too). Recent finds include Andrea Mastrovito's delicately outrageous Dracula-meets-Batman watercolours, and Luiggi Presicce's ghoulish toys.
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Galleria Milano
There is no beauty without risk, as this modern gallery in a historic palazzo has proved for decades. The vaulted ceiling of the grand salon was recently repainted with what looked like heraldic patterns from afar, but on closer inspection turned out to be thousands of mosquitoes hand-drawn by contemporary artist Vincenzo Agnetti.
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Galleria Cardi & Co
One of Milan's best-kept secrets is on a quiet street, through the courtyard and past garage doors: a polished concrete box often filled by Italy's most polished conceptual artists. Pier Paolo Calzolari recently showed lead and copper books slowly leaking saltwater onto white tablecloths, like fountains of knowledge reduced to tears.
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Photology
Tear yourself away from the gorgeous photography catalogues in the storefront bookstore and check out the gallery out back in the garden shed, where those X Portfolio fetish shots that got Robert Mappelthorpe censored in the US recently shared wall space with bored nudes in mod wigs by Andy Warhol and Carlo Mollino.
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Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
Within Europe’s first public library, the 1609 Biblioteca Ambrosiana, is its outstanding art gallery, the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana. Priceless works include Italy’s first real still life, Caravaggio’s Canestro di frutta (Fruit Basket) and Leonardo da Vinci’s Musico (Musician).
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Massimo de Carlo
The multilevel gallery Massimo de Carlo is entered via a bridge that gives a full view of the stockroom innards. This Via Ventura pioneer is a must-see, for the stellar line-up of artists - Diego Perrone, Simone Berti, Pei-Ming Yan - as well as the architecturally thoughtful space.
reviewed
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Galleria Raffaella Cortese
In a quiet street and down a steep driveway, this elongated basement space shows investigative, though amusing, work. Cortese’s stable of artists includes locals like Michael Fliri and international names like Czech Jana Sterbak, Australian Destiny Deacon, New York-based Roni Horn and Kiki Smith.
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Moroso
You half expect to glimpse Van Gogh shooting pool in the corner of this vibrant green and red gallery, with its curvaceous lipstick-coloured Ron Arad armchairs, verdant Venus flytrap chair, and a couch spontaneously combusting into a swirling, unstable floral pattern of red, brown and turquoise.
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Galleria d’Arte Moderna
Napoleon’s temporary Milanese home, the 18th-century Villa Reale, now houses the Civica Galleria d’Arte Moderna. This spread of 19th- and 20th-century Italian art ranges from neoclassical sculptor Canova to futurist painters Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni.
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Pinacoteca di Brera
Religious art amassed (or rather, purloined) by Napoleon formed the basis of the formidable collection at the 17th-century Palazzo di Brera’s Pinacoteca di Brera. Look out for Andrea Mantegna’s masterpiece, The Dead Christ, as well as Veronese’s Last Supper – very different in style from da Vinci’s depiction of events. Also on show are pieces by Raphael, Bellini, Rembrandt, Goya, Caravaggio and van Dyck.
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Galleria Tega
If you’re in the market for a precious work on paper, this is a good place to browse the stock room. The family behind this gallery has been dealing art since 1939 and sources paintings, sculptures and other pieces from Europe’s 20th-century greats.
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Galleria Emi Fontana
This gallery shows challenging conceptual work by Italian artists Monica Bonvicini, Liliana Moro and Luca Vitone as well as Icelandic superstar Olafur Eliasson. A second gallery in LA makes for some interesting international collaborations.
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Galleria Gió Marconi
Gio Marconi shows a diverse range of work including celeb-obsessed Francesco Vezzoli, the highly conceptual Elisa Sighicelli, architectural drawings from the late neorationalist architect Aldo Rossi and neo-expressionist Tal R.
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Galleria Francesca Kaufmann
Good for site-specific, ambitiously conceptual work. Kaufmann shows a number of young Milan-based artists, including Gianni Caravaggio (no relation), Adrian Paci, Maggie Cardelus and Pier Paolo Campanini.
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Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea
Art and design intertwine at the city’s ground-breaking contemporary galleries. Leading the pack is Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, which mounts experimental exhibitions in all media.
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Studio Guenzani
Shows here are from an excellent stable of Italian artists (such as Arte Povera-influenced Stefano Arienti) to international luminaries like Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman.
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Studio Giangaleazzo Visconti
This gallery is in the former studio of Lucio Fontana and has a similar stable of conceptual and Arte Povera artists as Christian Stein, who shares the building.
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Galleria Christian Stein
Artists shown here include Arte Povera proponents such as Mario Merz and Alighiero Boetti and Transavantgardist Mimmo Paladino.
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Monica de Cardenas Galleria
A contemporary gallery that shows conceptual work, including some interesting photographic artists.
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