In the first half of 2026, Intesa Sanpaolo is offering an articulated cultural programming in the four Gallerie d’Italia venues in Milan, Turin, Naples and Vicenza. The exhibition calendar is developed through photographic exhibitions, contemporary art projects and initiatives that relate historical heritage with languages of the present, maintaining a strong focus on scientific research and international comparison. Some events also fit into the context of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, of which the bank is Banking Premium Partner.
The program kicks off in Milan with the photography exhibition Gianni Berengo Gardin. Giorgio di Morandi’s Studio, scheduled at the Gallerie d’Italia from January 28 to April 6, 2026. The exhibition is part of the widespread exhibition project Metaphysics/Metaphysics. Modernity and Melancholy, curated by Vincenzo Trione, which is being developed in parallel in several city venues, including the Palazzo Reale, the Grande Brera-Palazzo Citterio and the Museo del Novecento, with a continuation planned from summer 2026 at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. The project aims to address Metaphysics as a trend and aesthetic figure capable of spanning the 20th century and the new century, influencing fields as diverse as architecture, design, fashion, photography, cinema, theater, literature, graphic novels and music.
In the Milan itinerary dedicated to Berengo Gardin, the photographer documents Giorgio Morandi ’s Bologna atelier before it was dismantled in 1993. The images render an intimate and isolated environment, described as a kind of monastic cell, a reserved space in which the relationship between intention and gesture that characterizes the artist’s work is manifested. The exhibition takes the form of one of the three focuses of the Metaphysical/Metaphysical project and is part of the narrative on the persistence of a metaphysical sensibility in contemporary visual culture.
Also at the Gallerie d’Italia in Milan, from Feb. 6 to May 2026, the exhibition The Road to Cortina opens. VII Olympic Winter Games 1956, curated by Aldo Grasso. The exhibition features a selection of photographs from the Intesa Sanpaolo Publifoto Archive dedicated to the first Winter Olympics hosted in Italy. The images focus on the social and cultural context that surrounded the event, offering a glimpse into the early years of the economic boom. In preparation for the exhibition, the photographic corpus created by the Publifoto Agency for the Cortina Olympics undergoes restoration, digitization and cataloging, with subsequent online publication.
In Turin, the Gallerie d’Italia is hosting from March 18 to Sept. 6, 2026, the exhibition Nick Brandt. The echo of our voices, curated by Arianna Rinaldo. The project presents the entire photographic trilogy The Day May Break, started by the British artist in 2000, along with a new unpublished chapter made in Jordan on commission by Intesa Sanpaolo. The images address the consequences of climate change on people, territories and animals, including portraits of Syrian refugee families, mostly farmers, who are forced to continuously move in search of climatic conditions compatible with survival and harvest. Brandt’s work focuses on a gradually dying nature and human communities directly affected by environmental transformations.
In Naples, the first half of 2026 opens April 3 with an exhibition that puts the Caputi Collection of Attic and Magna Graecia vases, on permanent display on the museum’s second floor, in dialogue with works by contemporary U.S. artist Alexi Worth. The project, curated by Silvia Gaspardo Moro and Richard Neer, continues a path started after a three-year cycle of comparisons with archaeological finds from the National Archaeological Museum in Naples and aims to emphasize the universality and timeless dimension of the messages expressed in ancient clays.
Also at the Turin venue, from April 10 through summer 2026, is the exhibition Diana Markosian. Replaced, curated by Brandei Estes, on the occasion of EXPOSED - Turin International Festival of Photography. The project addresses themes of memory, grief and loss through a reflection on affective substitution and the rewriting of shared places within a relationship. Texts and re-staged photographs construct an emotional topography that traverses real spaces, including Capri, to reflect on the overwriting of experiences and the progressive detachment from the past.
In Vicenza, from April 30 to August 2, 2026, the collaboration with the Illustri Association continues through the exhibition Natural Intelligence. Giorgia Lupi, curated in collaboration with the association as part of the Illustri Festival. The project addresses the theme of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence through the humanistic approach of information designer Giorgia Lupi, who defines herself as a data humanist and uses numbers and graphs as tools for visual and cultural reflection, transforming them into works capable of stimulating dialogue and discussion.
From May 6 to Sept. 6, 2026, the Gallerie d’Italia in Naples will host a new project with Obey, pseudonym of Frank Shepard Fairey. The initiative is in continuity with the projectWho are you Naples? created in 2024 by artist JR and features an intervention by the American illustrator and street artist, also known for the Hope poster dedicated to Barack Obama. Spring 2026 also sees the presentation of the third Vitalità del Tempo installation, a curatorial project by Luca Massimo Barbero dedicated to nuclei of works from Intesa Sanpaolo’s modern and contemporary art collection, following previous editions in 2022 and 2023.
The Milanese calendar continues from May 29 to Oct. 18, 2026, withHomage to Arnaldo Pomodoro for the 100th anniversary of his birth, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and Federico Giani and realized in collaboration with the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation. The exhibition project puts in dialogue a selection of works from the Foundation with works by the sculptor present in Intesa Sanpaolo’s collections, offering an itinerary that traces some important phases of his research.
Overall, the Gallerie d’Italia’s programming for the first half of 2026 confirms a curatorial line oriented toward the confrontation between languages, eras and disciplines, with a particular focus on the themes of the present and the enhancement of the collections, set in a context of research and dialogue with the territories.
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| Intesa Sanpaolo: exhibitions in the first half of 2026 among photography, contemporary and archaeology |
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