From Nov. 30, 2025 to April 12, 2026, MA*GA in Gallarate (Varese) will host the exhibition Kandinsky and Italy, an extensive exhibition project dedicated to Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), among the pioneers of European abstract art. The initiative, realized by the MA*GA Museum in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, is curated by Elisabetta Barisoni, director of the Foundation and head of Ca’ Pesaro - Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, and Emma Zanella, director of the Gallaratese museum.
Through about 130 works from Ca’ Pesaro, the MA*GA Museum and prestigious public and private collections, the exhibition aims to reconstruct Kandinsky’s role in the European scene and in particular his relationship with Italian abstractionism.
The first part of the exhibition will be devoted to the European cultural climate between the 1920s and 1930s, when the Russian artist, with his lectures at the Bauhaus, exerted a decisive influence on the developments of abstract painting and dialogued with figures such as Paul Klee, Jean Arp, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder and Antoni Tàpies. The second section instead investigates the connection with the Italian scene, starting with the historic solo exhibition at the Galleria del Milione in Milan in 1934, which opened a lively confrontation among Italian artists opposed to the dominant figuration. The birth and persistence of abstract art, from the Historic Avant-Garde to the 1950s, are thus reflected in the languages of Lucio Fontana, Osvaldo Licini, Fausto Melotti, Manlio Rho, Enrico Prampolini, Atanasio Soldati and Luigi Veronesi.
The tour will conclude with a focus on the post-World War II period, when Kandinsky’s thought and work continued to be central thanks to exhibitions such as Abstract and Concrete Art (Milan, 1947) and Abstract Art in Italy (Rome, 1948), as well as to the Forma, MAC and Origine movements, which inspired artists such as Carla Accardi, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Piero Dorazio, Roberto Sebastián Matta, Achille Perilli, Antonio Sanfilippo and Emilio Vedova.
The review, supported by the Lombardy Region under the Single Notice 2025 for participatory subjects, is part of the Varese Cultura 2030 project, promoted by the Province of Varese and financed by Fondazione Cariplo.
For info: www.museomaga.it
Pictured: Wassily Kandinsky, White Zig zags (1922; oil on canvas, 92 x 125 cm, inv.1686; Venice, Ca’ Pesaro - Galleria Internazionale d’arte Moderna, purchase at the Biennale, 1950)
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| At MA*GA in Gallarate an extensive exhibition on Kandinsky and Italian abstractionism. |
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