Starting June 21, 2025, the Reggia di Venaria will inaugurate a new cultural season around a single common thread: light. The program, entitled Into the Light, will consist of an annual calendar of events, installations, scientific meetings, educational activities, exhibitions and extraordinary openings that will involve the entire monumental complex, including the Gardens, the Piano Nobile, the Great Gallery and the exterior and interior spaces of the Baroque residence. The symbolic opening of the exhibition will take place on June 21, the summer solstice, a day chosen to celebrate light at its maximum daily extent. From 5 a.m., one hundred visitors with reservations will have access to the Galleria Grande to watch the sunrise inside the environment designed by Filippo Juvarra, a space of light par excellence. Two other groups, also consisting of one hundred people each, will enter in the time slot between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. From 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. access will be free for the ticketed public.
Among the main installations planned, Frames, conceived by Davide Ferrario in collaboration with the National Cinema Museum of Turin, will be set up in the Sala di Diana from June 21 to Aug. 31. Here, seventeenth-century canvases dedicated to hunting, a celebratory and ritual practice of the Savoy nobility, will become projection surfaces on which images taken from twentieth-century amateur films belonging to the collection of the Turin museum will flow. The project, also curated by Cristina Sardo with music by Fabio Barovero, generates a visual and conceptual dialogue between two eras: the Baroque aristocracy and the twentieth-century petty bourgeoisie, returning a reflection on the representation of power and collective identity.
“The Hall was the representative place of the Savoy family,” Ferrario explains. “Parties and banquets were held here after hunting parties, and the paintings on display in fact all have that kind of subject matter, celebrating the rituals of the nobility after their hunting exploits. Therefore, I searched the Cinema Museum’s collection for images, almost always amateur, from 1920 to 1950, that recounted instead the festivities of ordinary people: dances, carnival floats, sports competitions or simple family occasions. The smiling ghosts of the film overlap with the chivalrous poses of the paintings, creating a suggestion that is both visual and historical and social; especially now that the Reggia has been ’conquered’ by a democratic public.”
From June 28 to Aug. 31, the Reggia’s Citroniera will host an exhibition dedicated to Anthony McCall. The selection, curated by Gregor Muir and Andrew de Brún of London’s Tate Modern, includes some of his best-known light installations designed to interact with the space and the public. Visitors will be able to walk through projected beams of light that take sculptural form and change based on the viewers’ physical presence. The exhibition is part of the collaboration between the Consortium of the Royal Residences of Savoy and the Tate, continuing the dialogue between contemporary art and historic architecture.
On June 22 at 3 p.m., astrophysicist Ersilia Vaudo Scarpetta will be featured in a public lecture in Diana Hall. Titled The Miracle of Light, the meeting addresses the origin and role of light in the universe. Vaudo, an astrophysicist with the European Space Agency and founder of the association “The Traveling Sky,” will also speak on the topic in light of her recent publication Mirabilis.
Light will also be the protagonist of the musical event Sere d’Estate alla Reggia, scheduled from July 4 to August 30, with evening events among the Gardens and spaces of the Reggia, illuminated by thousands of candles. The preview of this programming will be entrusted to the second edition of Jazzarìa, which on June 28 and 29 will host two concerts in the Grand Parterre. Ray Gelato & The Giants and Emma Smith will open the festival, while singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, accompanied by Fabrizio Bosso, will headline the second evening. The ticket includes access to the Reggia, the Gardens and the ongoing exhibitions Magnificent Collections. Art and Power in the Genoa of the Doges and Solid Lightd bycontemporary artist Anthony McCall.
In parallel, throughout the summer, visitors can also explore Marinella Senatore’s work, Assembly, a light installation inspired by traditional southern Italian luminarias, on display at the Cascina Medici del Vascello. Alongside this, other contemporary works already on the museum’s itinerary will also remain open to visitors, including Peter Greenaway’s Repopulating the Reggia, Giuseppe Penone ’s The Garden of Fluid Sculptures with sculptureDirectionToward Light, Giovanni Anselmo’s Where the Stars Come One Step Closer, Grazia Toderi ’s Rendez-vous and Mimmo Paladino’s Storyboard. In addition, the square in front of the Reggia will be illuminated by streetlights designed by Michele De Lucchi, with crown-shaped LED lights capable of customizing the intensity and width of the light beam.
For younger audiences, two educational paths are planned on weekdays. The first, Do Plants Eat Light?, aimed at children ages 5 to 10, explores the role of photosynthesis through activities in the Gardens and workshops. The second, Architectures of Light, intended for children ages 5 to 13, offers an immersion in Juvarrian design and the artistic production of Anthony McCall, with the aim of letting children experience light, shadow and the body as expressive tools.
The Reggia will adopt new summer hours from July 1 to Aug. 31: Tuesday through Thursday will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday, Saturday and Thursday, Aug. 14, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. On Sundays, it will be accessible from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Summer Evenings at the Reggia ticket will allow entry from 6:30 p.m., including live shows and the light performance of the Stag Fountain Water Theater. During the fall, programming will continue with a series of Lectio magistralis dedicated to light and the publication of a book on the Great Gallery, with iconographic apparatus by well-known photographers and historical and architectural contributions. In winter, Into the Light will culminate with the Immaginaria project, which from Dec. 6, 2025 to Jan. 6, 2026 will bring light installations by French-Italian artist Gaspare Di Caro to the facades of the Reggia and the city’s historic center. Evening openings will continue during this period to allow the installations to be enjoyed in a festive context. The program will also extend into 2026 with new events and international exhibitions in the pipeline.
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| Programming on the theme of light kicks off at the Reggia di Venaria |
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