Milan is preparing to welcome the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games with an approach that goes beyond sports, transforming the city into a major cultural stage. The City Council, together with leading cultural institutions, has prepared a program of exhibitions and exhibition initiatives that crosses eras, languages and artistic disciplines, offering an articulated experience ranging from contemporary art to historical painting, from design to photography, from fashion to sculpture. The goal is to welcome visitors from all over the world and offer a comprehensive overview of artistic excellence, both Italian and international.
Notable exhibitions include Anselm Kiefer. Le Alchimiste, staged at Palazzo Reale, Sala delle Cariatidi, from Feb. 7 to September 2026. The exhibition, curated by Gabriella Belli, presents more than forty unpublished canvases designed to dialogue with the majesty of the exhibition space. The exhibition focuses on female figures linked to the birth of modern scientific thought, from the youthful Caterina Sforza to forgotten alchemists, rereading matter through a symbolic and alchemical language in which Kiefer investigates destruction, regeneration, myth and collective memory.
From February 3 to June 14, 2026, also at the Palazzo Reale, is the retrospective devoted to the Macchiaioli, a movement that revolutionized 19th-century Italian painting. More than ninety works, from major Italian museums, recount the experience of artists such as Fattori, Lega and Signorini, interweaving aesthetic battle and Risorgimento events. The exhibition, curated by Francesca Dini, Elisabetta Matteucci and Fernando Mazzocca, offers an in-depth rereading of the movement, highlighting the central role of the Macchiaioli in the formation of Italy’s cultural roots.
Metafisica/Metafisiche offers a diffuse itinerary between Palazzo Reale, Museo del Novecento and Gallerie d’Italia, from Jan. 28 to June 21, 2026, with a second stop planned in Rome from July. Curated by Vincenzo Trione, the exhibition puts the masters of Metaphysical Art, de Chirico, Savinio, Carrà, Morandi and de Pisis, in dialogue with international contemporary heirs and interpreters, from Surrealism to photography, from design to cinema. The itinerary delves into the links between the artists and the city of Milan, also celebrating Morandi through photographs by Gianni Berengo Gardin and William Kentridge’s previously unseen tribute at Palazzo Citterio.
From January 29 to May 17, 2026, Palazzo Reale hosts Robert Mapplethorpe. The Forms of Desire, a wide selection of iconic works by the American photographer, curated by Denis Curti. The exhibition explores the formal perfection of Mapplethorpe’s nudes and radical aesthetics, which use the body as an instrument of artistic investigation, combining a classical yet nonconformist vision.
At the PAC Pavilion of Contemporary Art, from November 25, 2025 to February 8, 2026, the group show INDIA. Of Gleams and Escapes, curated by Raqs Media Collective and Ferran Barenblit, offers an analysis of contemporary Indian art through painting, photography, installation, video and performance. Twenty-seven artists offer a complex vision of India, far from stereotypes, exploring migration, social change and cultural contamination. Thirteen of them will be hosted in residence in Milan, producing site-specific works in dialogue with the city.
GAM Gallery of Modern Art dedicates an exhibition to Paul Troubetzkoy. Sculptor of the Belle Époque from Feb. 27 to June 28, 2026. The exhibition reconstructs the cosmopolitan artist’s journey through portraits, animalistic sculptures and works of striking modernity, highlighting his ability to capture light and movement with an almost Impressionist technique. Curated by Omar Cucciniello, the review restores the figure of Troubetzkoy as an internationally renowned sculptor, friend and portraitist of Tolstoy, George Bernard Shaw and early American film stars.
The Castello Sforzesco will offer special tours of the construction site of the Sala delle Asse, with access to restorations of Leonardo da Vinci’s decorations, as well as a refurbishment of the Leonardo Hall in the Pinacoteca. The tour will include lunettes by Bernardino Luini and an unpublished painting by Bernardino Zenale, accompanied by interactive panels and captions to explore the Sforza artists’ connection with Leonardo.
MUDEC is hosting from Feb. 12 to June 28, 2026 The Sense of Snow, a multidisciplinary exhibition that addresses snow as a natural, cultural and artistic phenomenon, interweaving science, art, shamanism and Japanese prints. Chiharu Shiota’s installation, The Moment the Snow Melts, anticipates the event and transforms the museum’s agora into a metaphorical landscape of shared threads and memories.
At the Castello Sforzesco, the Civica Raccolta delle Stampe “Achille Bertarelli” offers, from December 2025 to April 2026, an exhibition on L’Italia sulla neve, with posters, illustrations and advertising materials that recount the spread of winter sports between the 19th and 20th centuries, accompanied by focuses on accessories, alpine fashion and tourism promotion.
From February 13 to March 13, 2026, the Fabbrica del Vapore dedicates the exhibition Pioneers Passion. Stefano Zardini, in which the Ampezzo photographer transforms the family archive into a contemporary tale of mountain pioneers, while Palazzo Morando hosts until September 27, 2026 THE GENTLEMAN. Style and Men’s Jewelry, a survey of three centuries of male aesthetics between ornament, dress and social identity.
Finally, CASVA offers from Dec. 12, 2025 to April 2026 DDL. Thinking Beyond Design, a tribute to De Pas, D’Urbino, and Lomazzi, with a focus on flexible living spaces and democratic design, and Palazzo Moriggia hosts Si combattva qui! Italy 1943-1945, a reportage by Alessio Franconi on the memory of war sites, from Campania to Marzabotto and Sant’Anna di Stazzema.
The exhibitions at Palazzo Reale, MUDEC and PAC are part of theMilan Cortina 2026 Cultural Olympiad program, a multidisciplinary, widespread and plural initiative that aims to promote Olympic values and strengthen the dialogue between art, culture and sports on the occasion of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, scheduled for Feb. 6-22 and March 6-15, 2026, respectively.
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| Milan, here is the program of exhibitions on the occasion of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Olympics |
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