MIART 2025: Where Art and Friendship Intersect

Fiera Milano presents the 29th edition of the international fair of modern and contemporary art that, under the artistic direction of Nicola Ricciardi and a renewed team of curators and professionals, will enliven the spaces of Allianz MiCo in Milan from 4 to 6 April 2025

Fiera Milano presents the 29th edition of miart, the international fair of modern and contemporary art that, under the artistic direction of Nicola Ricciardi and a renewed team of curators and professionals, will enliven the spaces of Allianz MiCo in Milan from 4 to 6 April 2025.

miart 2025 has built its identity and programme around the concept of friendship, understood as an equal, mutual, lasting and genuinely supportive connection. This approach is further reinforced by the title, among friends, borrowed from the last retrospective dedicated to Robert Rauschenberg, the artist to whom the fair pays tribute on the centenary of his birth.

In a perfect balance between local specificity and international scope of its proposals, miart 2025 presents 179 galleries from 31 countries and 5 continents divided into three sections: Established, Emergent, and Portal. Ranging from masterpieces of the first and second half of the twentieth century to works reflecting the most current artistic practices, including collectible design, miart brings together sculpture and painting, drawing and installation, video and photography, confirming the centrality of this event among the international fairs.

At the entry of the fair, highlighting the relevant role played by a new generation of gallerists within the art system, the Emergent section, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, presents 25 galleries offering insight into experimental contemporary practices. Continuing along the exhibition route, visitors encounter Established, the main section offering a selection of great masters of Modern Art and contemporary practices. The Timescape project is also within this section: a thematic journey that guides visitors through masterpieces from the early 20th century.

Finally, Portal, the section curated by Alessio Antoniolli and inspired by the among friends’ theme, brings together ten galleries for ten projects that invite us to question our understanding of fixed geographies, languages and temporalities.

Openness to the world, interdisciplinarity, and a commitment to dialogue and collaboration are the principles underlying Robert Rauschenberg’s work – principles that miart and Fiera Milano have embraced, harnessing the network of relations built over the years to become the driving force behind an ideal festival of contemporary arts and producers of culture both within and beyond the timeframe of the fair itself.

This commitment takes shape through a series of initiatives that give concrete form to the theme of ‘friendship’ in the artistic field, understood as mutual support among all the stakeholders in the art system: fair, museums, public and private institutions, galleries, artists, curators, collectors and non-profit art spaces.

First and foremost, in chronological order, are the talks among friends, which miart launched last November and which will continue beyond the dates of the fair thanks to the collaboration with Fondazione Prada, Museo del Novecento, PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca and Triennale Milano (complete programme here).

With the aim of mutual support, during miart and as part of the Milan Art Week programme, Museo del Novecento inaugurates Rauschenberg e il Novecento, an exhibition promoted by the City of Milan – Culture in collaboration with miart and Fiera Milano. Curated by Gianfranco Maraniello and Nicola Ricciardi with Viviana Bertanzetti, the project builds a bridge between the artist’s works and some of the most significant masterpieces from the Museum’s collections, while in the spaces of the Triennale Milano, the exhibition John Giorno: a labour of LOVE, curated by Nicola Ricciardi with Eleonora Molignani, sheds light on the traces of Giorno’s friendships. On Saturday, 5 April, on the occasion of miart and Milan Art Week, John Giorno: poetry readings & free tattoos will take place. This special event features a professional actor selected by Umberto Angelini, Artistic Director of Triennale Milano Teatro, performing Giorno’s poems, while the tattoo artist Cursed Lover offers free handpoke tattoos of selected verses by the American poet to anyone willing to participate.

These exhibitions are also made possible thanks to the support of Fiera Milano, whose involvement – perfectly aligned with the among friends’ theme – highlights the desire to strengthen the offering and cohesion of the city’s cultural system, going beyond the spatial boundaries of the fair pavilions to weave into the fabric of the city.

In a continuous cycle of cross-references in and out of the fair, building another bridge between miart and the events happening in the city, the entrance of the fair will be overturned by BIG EGO – an impressive wall painting by John Giorno created in collaboration with the fashion brand MSGM.

The Fondazione Fiera Milano Acquisition Fund, worth 100,000 euros, is confirmed for this edition, and there are seven other miart 2025 prizes that will be awarded thanks to the contribution, as jurors, of international directors and curators: Herno Prize, LCA Studio Legale Prize for Emergent, Orbital Cultura – Nexi Group Award, Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize, SZ Sugar miart Commission, Rotary Club Milano Brera Award for Contemporary Art and Young Artists and Massimo Giorgetti Prize.