By Giulia Piceni. Cover image: Matteo Nasini, Gli Esultanti, 2025. Exhibition view in True love will find you in the end at Clima Gallery, Milan. Courtesy of the artist and Clima Gallery, Milan. Photo Giorgia Rinaldi
Milan is an incredible destination in spring. In the whirlwind of Milan Design Week and Miart, where the demand for innovation and creativity is relentless, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The constant rush, the endless flow of ideas, and the pressure to keep up with the latest trends can leave little room for personal reflection. Yet, amidst this frenetic energy, there are opportunities to pause and reconnect with the deeper, more contemplative side of creativity.
The art exhibitions that grace Milan during Spring 2025 are more than just displays of artistic brilliance; they offer a quiet space to renew your inspiration. They remind us that in a world of constant overstimulation, it’s vital to take a moment to slow down and reflect, allowing for the rejuvenation of ideas and the nurturing of a fresh perspective.
5 Unmissable Art Exhibitions in Milan for Spring 2025
1. Pastorale at Palazzo Reale
Among the best art exhibitions in Milan, Pastorale, curated by Sergio Risaliti, transforms the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale into a space that explores the tension between nature and artifice. Nico Vascellari’s monumental installation reimagines the ruins of this historic site, scarred by wartime bombings, as the backdrop for a new cycle of destruction and regeneration.
At the centre of the installation stands a towering mechatronic sculpture—cylindrical, metallic, and otherworldly. Set on a hidden pedestal and surrounded by a floor covered in earth, this sculpture periodically erupts, releasing a dense cloud of floral seeds. This mechanical dispersal, almost a violent act of fertilisation, echoes the rhythm of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, where harmony is disrupted by sudden force.
Visitors can navigate the periphery, excluded from the core of the machine, and observe a paradoxical artificial nature unfolding. Pastorale questions our place in a world where technology drives rebirth, and yet life continues to emerge from the soil. The exhibition runs until June 2, 2025.
2. John Giorno: A Labour of LOVE at Triennale
Inspired by the theme of Miart 2025 and curated by its artistic director, Nicola Ricciardi, John Giorno: A Labour of LOVE revisits the vibrant exchanges between John Giorno and figures such as Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, William S. Burroughs, John Cage, Allen Ginsberg, Jasper Johns, and Patti Smith. These friendships melded love, art, and radical experimentation, forging new artistic languages showcased throughout Triennale Milano.
Giorno’s voice—amplified through dramatic pauses, metallic sounds, and musical notes—is captured in videos and projections that document his countless collaborations. His poetry transcended the written word; for example, in Streetworks (1969), it was spread across city streets, sometimes appearing as shopping lists or sketches. During roller-skated happenings, he transformed sidewalks into stages, turning passersby into unwitting spectators. The exhibition celebrates Giorno’s restless spirit, where poetry was not only written but fully lived—urgent, fleeting, and deeply intertwined with life itself. Hurry, it’s only open until April 13, 2025.
3. Typologien at Fondazione Prada
Typologien: Photography in 20th Century Germany is a major exhibition showcasing 20th-century German photography, curated by Susanne Pfeffer and hosted at Fondazione Prada’s central space, Podium. The exhibition explores the concept of typology—first introduced in 17th-century botany and later embraced in early 20th-century photography—as a means of categorisation that highlights both shared and individual artistic approaches.
Instead of following a chronological order, the exhibition adopts a typological structure, presenting over 600 works by 25 artists, including Bernd and Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The use of suspended walls creates geometric partitions that forge unexpected connections between diverse artistic practices.
As Pfeffer states, “Only through juxtaposition can we discern what is individual and what is universal.” In an age of digital image overload, Typologien invites viewers to reconsider photography’s ability to classify, compare, and reveal unseen connections across different times and artistic movements. The exhibition will be open until July 14, 2025.
4. ICARUS at Pirelli HangarBicocca
One of the must-see art exhibitions in Milan is ICARUS at Pirelli HangarBicocca (until July 27, 2025), the first major European retrospective dedicated to Yukinori Yanagi. Curated by Vicente Todolí with Fiammetta Griccioli, the exhibition brings together iconic works from the 1990s to the present, creating an immersive journey through the central themes of the Japanese artist’s practice: nationalism, borders, and globalisation.
Yanagi recontextualises his monumental installations within the industrial spaces of HangarBicocca’s, transforming them into settings for reflection on the fragility of power and the impact of technology. The title ICARUS evokes the Greek myth as a metaphor for nuclear energy and human hubris. Through symbols such as shipping containers and barrels, the artist explores the tension between movement and permanence, as well as reality and fantasy.
Spanning the vast Navate and Cubo spaces, the exhibition features large-scale, site-specific works, including his iconic The World Flag Ant Farm, where thousands of live ants reshape national symbols, highlighting the instability of identity and sovereignty.
5. True Love Will Find You in the End at Clima Gallery
True Love Will Find You in the End is the latest solo exhibition by Matteo Nasini at Clima Gallery in Milan. The show, open until May 30, 2025, delves into the concept of passion as both a force for conquest and a means of protection, examining its power to shape identities and influence the course of our lives.
Central to the exhibition are artworks made from resin, sand, and cement. These materials, often associated with permanence and transformation, embody the intensity of an emotion that can both overwhelm us and drive profound change. Nasini’s work captures the raw energy of passion—its ability to inspire, consume, and redefine boundaries.
Through a delicate balance of abstraction and physicality, True Love Will Find You in the End invites visitors to reflect on the dual nature of passion: an elemental drive that fuels both creation and destruction.
