CURA.

miart celebrates its thirtieth edition in the new South Wing venue at Allianz MiCo, bringing together 160 galleries from 24 countries and confirming its position among the leading international art fairs.

Under the title New Directions, inspired by John Coltrane, the fair looks to jazz as a creative model, transforming its structure into a space for improvisation and dialogue between languages, generations and artistic perspectives.

Renewed sections, special projects, awards and collaborations with institutions and partners shape a programme driven by a shared rhythm, extending the experience from miart into the city and strengthening Milan’s role within the global art landscape.

miart celebrates its thirtieth edition in the new South Wing venue at Allianz MiCo, bringing together 160 galleries from 24 countries and confirming its position among the leading international art fairs.

Under the title New Directions, inspired by John Coltrane, the fair looks to jazz as a creative model, transforming its structure into a space for improvisation and dialogue between languages, generations and artistic perspectives.

Renewed sections, special projects, awards and collaborations with institutions and partners shape a programme driven by a shared rhythm, extending the experience from miart into the city and strengthening Milan’s role within the global art landscape.

Milan, 24 March 2026 – Fiera Milano presents the thirtieth edition of miart, the international modern and contemporary art fair directed by Nicola Ricciardi, taking place from 17 to 19 April 2026 (VIP preview on Thursday 16), celebrating this important milestone by honouring its history while opening up to new horizons.

With the title New Directions – a tribute to the album of recordings made in 1963 by John Coltrane (1926–1967) on the centenary of his birth – miart 2026 adopts jazz’s ability to transform a known standard into fertile ground for innovation, embracing a transformation that touches every aspect of its identity, beginning with its new location in the South Wing of Allianz MiCo, an architectural space overlooking the contemporary landscape of CityLife, ready to be interpreted as a blank score.

Divided into three sections – Emergent, Established and Established Anthology – 160 galleries from 24 countries trace over a century of art history, from early twentieth-century masterpieces to the most current practices. This journey confirms miart as the fair with the widest chronological scope and as a platform capable of welcoming and representing a plurality of voices, celebrating the past while simultaneously looking towards multiple possible futures.

Like a jazz improvisation that brings together memory and innovation in a vibrant dialogue, historic sections and new perspectives take centre stage in a renewed layout organised across three distinct levels, designed to guide visitors through a progressive experience of discovery.

Welcoming the public on the entrance floor is Emergent, the starting point of the exhibition path, offering the opportunity to discover the latest trends in contemporary art through a selection of galleries whose programmes are dedicated to experimentation. Curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, the section expands this year to include 29 galleries from around the world, once again confirming its international standing. The 26 exhibition projects address themes such as identity, memory, the body, social structures and climate change through painting, sculpture, ceramics, textile works, video and photography, with a strong presence of women artists presenting solo shows and site-specific installations conceived especially for the fair.

The historic section Established will host, on Level 0 of the South Wing, 111 galleries whose projects organically span twentieth-century art through to the present, placing masters of modern art in dialogue with contemporary research and projects linked to collectible and authorial design. Within this broad horizon, Established reaffirms the fair’s distinctive vocation: bringing together different times, media and genealogies in a narrative where contemporaneity is shaped through continuity, deviation, return and new openings. Among the stands emerges a plurality of visions, from monographic solo presentations to intergenerational dialogues, from comparisons between modern and contemporary to focuses on movements, geographies and materials. The result is a true constellation of projects in which painting, sculpture, installation, ceramics and photography become tools for investigating transformations in the present.

On the upper floor, the new section Established Anthology takes shape, bringing together 20 international galleries around a shared aim: to narrate the complexity, trajectories and transformations of time. The works on display explore cycles, metamorphosis, memory, temporal leaps and possible futures, creating an ongoing dialogue between modern languages and the most current practices. Through thematic exhibitions, monographic focuses and generational juxtapositions, the projects celebrate both historical figures and contemporary artists, exploring dimensions of time, space and cultural transformation. Established Anthology thus reinforces miart’s long-standing approach, which views art history not as a linear sequence but as a living horizon of returns, rewritings and anticipations.

miart 2026 also sees the debut of the special project Movements, dedicated to the moving image and developed in collaboration with the St. Moritz Art Film Festival. Curated by Stefano Rabolli Pansera, the programme presents 20 films by artists represented by 15 galleries, exploring for the first time at miart the poetic and experimental language of video and artist film.

The theme of Movements: If Music investigates the relationship between music and cinema as a space of possibility, where film becomes not narrative but vibration, rhythm and resonance. The works presented show how sound can transform perception, space and the body, generating new forms of experience.
Organised into five movements, the programme unfolds across: Matter and landscape, where images and sounds emerge as fields of resonance; Voice and translation, in which dissonance becomes a collective and political space; Rhythmic space, transformed into architectures of loops and repetition; Choreography, where the body becomes score, memory and living archive; Rhythm of labour, revealing the transformative power of everyday gestures.
As a whole, Movements: If Music proposes a new way of seeing and listening: music does not accompany images, but generates them, opening up a polyphonic territory to inhabit.

miart 2026 composes a score of heterogeneous visions, in which each project becomes a note within a broader chord, generating a dialogue between times, languages and generations, and giving rise to a collective experience where the past, present and future of art resonate together, opening new directions and creative possibilities.

On the occasion of its thirtieth edition, miart strengthens its dialogue with partners and sponsors, like a jazz ensemble in which each voice contributes to a shared rhythm, giving life to a vibrant programme of awards, acquisition funds and special initiatives celebrating collective creativity.

The collaboration with Gruppo Intesa Sanpaolo is renewed, supporting miart as main partner. International outlook, excellence and attention to the cultural development of the territory are the values linking miart to the banking group, with the aim of consolidating Milan’s central role both nationally and internationally and offering the city a further driver of economic, cultural and civic growth.

For miart 2026, the Bank presents the project Standard/Variations, curated by Nicola Ricciardi, which explores the dialogue between painting and jazz in the 1960s, connecting the early works of Robert Ryman and Mario Schifano with the evolution of modal jazz inaugurated by Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. The project – also realised with works from the Luigi and Peppino Agrati Collection and spread between the Bank’s lounge at the fair and the vault of the Gallerie d’Italia in Piazza Scala – interprets jazz not as mere conceptual decoration but as a paradigm of modernity: innovation arises from working within rules, transforming form without destroying it. Ryman’s white canvases and Schifano’s monochromes show how the standard can become both threshold and resource, offering a reading of experimentation as intensity distributed over time and harmony between structure and freedom. Within the fair space, two emblematic monochromes are displayed: Schifano’s red Analogo (1961) and Ryman’s white Winsor 20 (1966).

Also in the Bank’s lounge area, Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking will be present with its art advisory service, dedicated to those who view art as an opportunity for diversified wealth growth and seek highly specialised guidance in selecting, evaluating and managing collections or individual works of art.

The Fondazione Fiera Milano Acquisition Fund, established in 2012, is also confirmed. Worth €100,000, the fund is dedicated to acquiring artworks that will enrich the Foundation’s collection, now housed in the Palazzina degli Orafi and currently comprising over 140 works representing different artistic languages. The works are available on: https://www.fondazionefieramilano.it/it/il-patrimonio/patrimonio-artistico.html.

Now in its eleventh edition, the Herno Prize awards €10,000 to the stand presenting the most outstanding exhibition project, while the LCA Studio Legale Prize for Emergent, valued at €4,000 and established in collaboration with LCA Studio Legale, is granted to the gallery distinguished by the strongest presentation within the Emergent section.

Also confirmed for its fourth edition is the Orbital Cultura – Nexi Group Award, the only award entirely dedicated to photography, together with the Matteo Visconti di Modrone Prize, established in memory of the President of Fonderia Artistica Battaglia. The latter awards €10,000 to an artist selected through an open call, offering the opportunity to realise their work within the foundry with the support of master craftsmen. This year the foundry also introduces a Special Mention worth €1,000, enabling the selected artist to undertake production or experimentation within the foundry.

The SZ Sugar miart commission is renewed, developed in collaboration with SZ Sugar, a publishing house dedicated to contemporary classical music. This edition’s project, also involving CAM Sugar – the most extensive and prestigious catalogue of Italian original film scores – focuses on two key works from 1960: Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti by Piero Umiliani, created with the collaboration of American jazz musician Chet Baker, and Invenzione su una voce per nastro magnetico by Bruno Maderna, one of the most influential composers and conductors of the twentieth-century Italian musical avant-garde. Participating galleries are invited to have their artists intervene directly on the tapes of these works, reworking and transforming them into new artistic productions.

On the occasion of the thirtieth edition, the Archivorum Publication Award for miart is also launched, supporting the development of an original editorial project created in close collaboration between the selected artist and an independent publisher, with the aim of going beyond the traditional catalogue format and encouraging experimentation with new editorial languages – including, but not limited to, the artist’s book. The chosen artist will be selected within the presentations of the Emergent section, and the award carries a value of €20,000.

Also confirmed are the Rotary Club Milano Brera Award for Contemporary Art and Young Artists, established in 2009 as the first award within the context of miart and now in its sixteenth edition, which involves the acquisition of a work by an emerging or mid-career artist to be donated to the Museo del Novecento, and the Massimo Giorgetti Prize, now in its fourth edition. Born from the desire of designer and collector Massimo Giorgetti to support young artists at the start of their careers, the award grants a prize valued at €5,000.

The awarding of these prestigious prizes will be guided by the contribution of leading international directors and curators, who will serve as jurors, including: Clément Delépine, Director, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris; Helena Kritis, Chief Curator, WIELS Centre for Contemporary Art, Brussels; Arturo Galansino, General Director, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; Vittoria Matarrese, Independent Curator, Paris; Edward Gillman, Director, Chisenhale Gallery, London; Alessio Antoniolli, Director, Triangle Network, London & Curator, Fondazione Memmo, Rome.

For miart’s thirtieth edition, further strategic partnerships are renewed, including the one with the fashion brand MSGM, founded and directed by Massimo Giorgetti, which has commissioned artist Alessandro Di Pietro (Messina, 1987) to create a site-specific animated work produced in collaboration with OGR Torino and conceived specifically for the outdoor LED screen in the South Square of Allianz MiCo, a space of connection and access to the fair’s new entrance. The project, titled Buena vista, is an animated short film featuring Testa di Casa, a character created by Di Pietro and first appearing in FRANKENSTEIN Magazine in 2023: a Milanese youngster with a roof in place of their head who, following an eviction, finds themselves confronting a new condition and the most basic needs, such as eating and resting—Milan becomes their bed and the symbols of the city their nourishment. Through a sequence of everyday episodes with a tragicomic tone and pared-down backgrounds in the style of La Linea by Osvaldo Cavandoli, the work addresses the right to housing, placing it at the narrative and political core of the piece.

Maison Ruinart also confirms its commitment to art and sustainability, presenting, within the Ruinart Lounge and for the first time in Italy, works by Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, protagonist of the Conversations with Nature 2026 series. Known for his works and installations made from wood and fragments of furniture, the artist invites viewers to observe the vibrations of nature, a fundamental element in the harmony of champagne.

Elle Decor Italia and Kartell, meanwhile, enhance the space of the VIP Restaurant by Cracco; the renewed collaboration with the Associazione Italiana Ambasciatori del Gusto narrates the meeting and cross-pollination between two forms of excellence, art and food; while the new partnership with Radio Monte Carlo, the fair’s official radio, reinforces and amplifies the jazz-driven identity of miart 2026. The collaboration with ITA – Italian Trade Agency for the promotion abroad and internationalisation of Italian companies – is renewed for the fourth consecutive year, continuing to provide significant support to the fair’s international development. ICE’s backing makes it possible to expand miart’s visibility abroad and encourage international participation, consolidating the event’s role within the global art landscape.

The Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture also returns to miart with an institutional space open to dialogue with professionals, institutions and stakeholders. This provides an opportunity to present the programmes shaping public policy for contemporary art — Italian Council, Strategia Fotografia, PAC – Piano per l’Arte Contemporanea — across their various fields of action, from the production and international promotion of Italian artists to the strengthening of public collections. Within the space, visitors will also be able to consult publications illustrating some of the research developed through these initiatives.

During miart week, Milan takes shape as a landscape crossed by multiple resonances. Across exhibitions, performances and special projects, a musical thread emerges, accompanying some of the city’s key initiatives and connecting diverse practices, languages and exhibition formats. Sound, rhythm, improvisation, variation and listening — beyond being defining elements of miart 2026’s curatorial theme — thus become tools through which to question space, gesture and the collective dimension of experience.

At Gallerie d’Italia, the project Ryman/Schifano: Standard/Variations expands further within the Vault, exceptionally open during the days of miart, presenting a group of works by the two artists selected by Nicola Ricciardi, also drawing from the Luigi and Peppino Agrati Collection, the prestigious body of contemporary art now part of the Intesa Sanpaolo Group’s collections thanks to the bequest of Cavaliere Luigi Agrati. The works transform the space into a true “listening chamber” for painting, where the reduction of language makes minimal differences, deviations and possibilities of gesture perceptible. The exhibition then continues its dialogue in the Sala Manzoni upstairs with Ryman’s monumental Surface Veil IV. Within this curatorial framework, the work makes even clearer that painting is not simply a genre or an image, but a spatial and material — almost spiritual — fact, grounded in a relationship between light, physicality, gesture and duration of viewing that makes the experience not unlike that of listening to jazz performed live.

The exhibition The Rhythm of the Eye. Don Bronstein and the Jazz Scene in Chicago 1953–1968 at Triennale Milano, curated by Filippo Fossati and Nicola Ricciardi, presents for the first time in Europe the work of photographer Don Bronstein, a discreet yet pivotal figure in post-war American visual culture. Through a selection of photographs devoted to leading figures of jazz between the 1950s and 1960s — from Nat King Cole to Miles Davis — the project reveals a visual language capable of transforming documentation into a sensory experience. The exhibition also inaugurates a research trajectory that will continue at Triennale in the months ahead with Henri Matisse. Jazz as a Method, curated by Viviana Bertanzetti and Nicola Ricciardi: a further chapter that, beginning with the French master’s work Jazz (1947), will extend the reflection to the relationship between visual arts, composition and editorial experimentation.

At PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, The only true anarchy is that of power is presented, the first European monographic exhibition dedicated to Marco Fusinato, one of the most innovative artists and musicians on the contemporary international scene. Curated by Diego Sileo, the exhibition brings together a selection of his most significant works from recent years, including Desastres, the large-scale performance work with which the artist represented Australia at the 59th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in 2022. The exhibition marks Fusinato’s return to Italy and invites the public into a radical audiovisual universe in which perception is constantly put to the test.

At Pirelli HangarBicocca, the exhibition The House That Jack Built by Rirkrit Tiravanija explores thirty years of research into the artist’s spatial and architectural practices. The project includes devices such as untitled 2026 (demo station n. 9), a spiral platform designed for meetings, performances and workshops, configuring the exhibition as a space to inhabit and activate. Within this context, on Friday 17 April, the intervention by Giotto Orsini, a student at the Politecnico delle Arti di Bergamo, takes place; his research develops along a line of continuity with African American musical languages — techno, jazz and blues — understood as practices of experimentation, resistance and autonomy. With The Blue Circle, Orsini evokes the dancefloor as a perceptual condition; echoing a lesson that also recalls Miles Davis, the focus here shifts to what happens between sounds: pauses, interstices, zones of suspension.

Also at Pirelli HangarBicocca, on Saturday 18 April, the exhibition Rebecca by Benni Bosetto, the artist’s first major institutional show, comes to life through a programme dedicated to her performances. Throughout the day, across different spaces within the exhibition, Bosetto re-enacts moments from her performative works, which emerge as unexpected apparitions — dreamlike images that reactivate the works across different places and times. Through moments of music, dance and singing, the three areas into which the exhibition is divided — the Cheek, the Belly and the Heart — enter a performative mode that reflects Bosetto’s long-standing research into the languages of the body.

Finally, Fondazione Prada, and in particular the Cinema Godard, continues its programme dedicated to cinema past and present. During the miart weekend, within the #Supernova section devoted to emerging talents, White Snail will be screened at Cinema Godard. Written and directed by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter and presented in competition at Locarno in 2025, the film also stands out for its original soundtrack by John Gürtler and Jan Miserre, two composers who in recent years have established themselves as distinctive voices in European film music, capable of crafting tense, atmospheric scores highly attuned to the relationship between sound, space and emotional intensity.

Numerous other initiatives animate Milano Art Week from 13 to 19 April, a city-wide event dedicated to art in all its forms, coordinated by the Department of Culture and organised by Arte Totale ETS. A calendar of openings, installations, exhibitions, events and talks shines a spotlight on the vitality of Milan’s art system, with the city’s leading public and private institutions taking centre stage.

New Directions is intended as an invitation to let oneself be carried by evolving languages, by artists who dare, by galleries willing to take risks, and by an audience that listens — just as one listens to jazz: with respect, with wonder, with desire.

This is the vocation of miart 2026: like a composition in which each note responds to the next, the fair proudly affirms its roots while reinterpreting its identity to narrate the present and imagine new perspectives for the future.