CURA.

Bringing together under one roof 179 galleries from 31 countries and 5 continents, miart confirms its central role within the European fair landscape, with major returns and significant new entries. Organised by Fiera Milano with Intesa Sanpaolo as the main partner, this edition pays tribute to Robert Rauschenberg on the centenary of his birth through museum exhibitions, talks, and projects aimed at exploring his commitment to cooperation and the exchange of ideas. Emphasising collaboration, miart and Fiera Milano position themselves as promoters and producers of culture, helping to strengthen both the cultural offering and the cohesion of the city’s cultural system.

Fiera Milano presents the 29th edition of miart, the international fair of modern and contemporary art which, under the artistic direction of Nicola Ricciardi and with a renewed team of curators and professionals, will enliven the spaces of Allianz MiCo in Milan from 4 to 6 April 2025 (VIP preview on Thursday 3 April). miart 2025 has shaped its identity and programme around the concept of friendship, understood as 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. Striking a perfect balance between local specificity and the international scope of its proposals, and with a carefully curated selection of leading Italian galleries alongside some of the most important international ones, miart presents projects spanning more than a century of art history across three sections: Established, Emergent, and Portal. Ranging from masterpieces of the early and mid-20th century to works reflecting the most current artistic practices, including collectible design, miart creates a dialogue between sculpture and painting, drawing and installation, video and photography.

RESEARCH, EXPERIMENTATION AND DIALOGUE: THE GALLERIES OF MIART 2025

At the entry of the fair, highlighting the central role played by a new generation of gallerists within the art system, the Emergent section presents 25 galleries offering insight into experimental contemporary practices. Focusing on research, curator Attilia Fattori Franchini has shaped an ambitious section featuring immersive installations, large-scale and site-specific sculptural works, and new pieces created especially for thevfair – all designed to provide a perspective on some of the most stimulating contemporary practices. Continuing along the exhibition route, visitors encounter Established, the main section, which offers a selection of great masters of Modern Art alongside contemporary practices. Rich in dialogues between artists – often from different generations – the section also features solo shows and museum-quality projects that trace the most significant artistic movements of the past century.
Established also complements the programmes of Milan’s cultural institutions during Milano Art Week 2025 – the event promoted by the City of Milan – Culture in collaboration with Associazione Arte Totale – with projects that echo the city’s exhibitions and often draw inspiration from this edition’s curatorial theme, among friends. The Timescape project is also within this section: a thematic journey that guides visitors through masterpieces from the early 20th century.

Finally, Portal, curated for the first time by Alessio Antoniolli – Director of Triangle Network in London and Curator at Fondazione Memmo in Rome – brings together ten galleries for ten projects that invite us to question our understanding of fixed geographies, languages, and temporalities. Inspired by miart’s theme among friends and by Rauschenberg’s visionary approach, which saw art as a collective process, this section rejects a singular vision of the world, favouring dynamic processes and interconnected pathways that aspire towards greater collaboration and harmonious coexistence.

The projects and galleries of miart 2025 contribute to the creation of a platform capable of displaying a multitude of ever-evolving voices and realities – a showcase which, through research, offers a richer and more nuanced view of the past, a keen gaze on the present, and imagines and constructs multiple futures.

AMONG FRIENDS: MIART AND FIERA MILANO, A LEADING ROLE IN SUPPORTING ART AND CULTURE
Openness to the world, interdisciplinarity, and a commitment to dialogue and collaboration are the principles underpinning the work of Robert Rauschenberg— principles that miart and Fiera Milano have embraced, harnessing the network of relationships 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 stakeholders within the art system: the fair, museums, private and public 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 collaborations with Fondazione Prada, Museo del Novecento, PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, and Triennale Milano. This programme of conversations celebrates miart’s and Milanese institutions’ ability to promote collaborations and synergies that transcend the boundaries between public and private, reach beyond their traditional confines, explore new disciplines, and even engage with public spaces.