iPalazzo Reale di MilanoCentro Storico
Picabia. Aprire le porte della notte
Italy's largest ever Francis Picabia show: 170+ paintings, drawings, photos and archive pieces exploring night as a metaphor for desire and reinvention.
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Each of the twelve rooms is one hour of the night, run from sunset to dawn, with themes of celebration, desire, introspection and love. The same arc as a Saturday on the Navigli, minus the 4am piadina.
You start among thirteen black albums filled with clippings, drawings, letters and invitations, and you leave past Sans titre (1898), Picabia's earliest known work. In between are more than 170 works, Italy's largest Picabia show. Curator Anne Berest Picabia, a descendant of the artist, brought family letters and private photographs, and the Jacques Doucet library in Paris supplies archive material. Paintings range from early Impressionist-influenced landscapes to machine pictures like Fille née sans mère (1915, Musée d'Orsay) and 1940s nudes drawn from erotic magazines.
Il Giorno's critic found the theatrical, almost cinematic staging emotionally involving. Tickets are €15, or €17 for an open date, audio guide included; families pay €10 per adult and €6 for ages 6 to 14. Thursdays stay open until 22:30, with last entry an hour earlier.
Editor's pick
Twelve rooms, one for each hour of the night from sunset to dawn, carry 170-plus works, from machine drawings to the still-divisive 1940s nudes. Il Giorno's critic found the staging almost cinematic. Not for anyone who wants chronology.
Look for
The black albums
Thirteen albums that open the show, packed with newspaper clippings, drawings, letters, photographs, manuscripts and invitations.
Fille née sans mère (1915)
A machine drawn as a body, lent by the Musée d'Orsay, where industrial parts carry erotic undertones.
The Transparencies (1927-1933)
Botticellian faces, classical myth and biblical details laid over one another on the same canvas, with no foreground or background.
The 1940s nudes
Paintings drawn from erotic and fashion magazines, made deliberately mass-market and still divisive.
The family letters and photographs
Private letters, photographs and personal objects from the Picabia family archive, tied to Duchamp, Man Ray, Stein and Apollinaire.
Good for
- Dates
- Evening Visits
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want an artist's career in order: the route follows the hours of one night, not chronology.
With kids
Families pay €10 per adult and €6 for children aged 6 to 14. The 1940s section includes nudes.
Also at Palazzo Reale di Milano
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Image credits
9
- Picabia. Aprire le porte della notteCourtesy of Palazzo Reale di Milano
- Tommaso Trini. La terra vista dalla lunaCourtesy of Museo del Novecento
- Il "segno" di San Francesco: immagini di una vitaCourtesy of Pinacoteca Ambrosiana
- Pina Bausch, Le Sacre du printempsCourtesy of Museo Teatrale alla Scala
- Palazzo Reale di MilanoPaolobon140 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo del Duomo di Milano23vita / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Museo del NovecentoFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Pinacoteca AmbrosianaPaolobon140 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Museo Teatrale alla ScalaDaniel Case / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0