Coming up in Rome

MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts

Sophie Calle's first Rome retrospective spans more than forty years of work probing presence, absence and intimacy through photography and narrative.

Museo dell'Ara Pacis

A retrospective of over 200 photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, tracing his pursuit of pure form across portraits, flowers, the body and dialogues with classical sculpture. Curated by Denis Curti.

MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts

An illuminated rooftop installation whose lights flare in real time whenever lightning strikes somewhere across Italy, connecting art and visitors to the energy of nature.

Palazzo Barberini - Gallerie Nazionali di Arte Antica

Vermeer's 'Woman in Blue Reading a Letter', on loan from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, comes to Palazzo Barberini for a focused display of the Dutch master's intimate light.

Vatican Museums

Twentieth-century paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints from intellectual Leone Piccioni's collection, including Burri, Morandi and Guttuso, donated to the Vatican in 2024. In the Borgia Tower rooms.

MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts

A seventieth-anniversary retrospective of the acclaimed comic artist Andrea Pazienza, gathering his strips, sketches and archival material across chronologically arranged galleries.

Colosseum and Roman Forum

Over 300 artefacts from Italian museums alongside more than 220 works on loan from 19 Turkish museums trace the mythological and historical ties between Troy and Rome. The itinerary, introduced by a monumental replica of the Trojan Horse, connects the heritage of ancient Ilion with the myth of Aeneas and the founding of Rome.

La Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GNAM)

Recreation of the landmark 1985 show celebrating twenty years of collaboration between FENDI and Karl Lagerfeld, tracing the creative process from sketches through production across eight sections.

Galleria Borghese

A film installation by Isaac Julien in the Uccelliera pavilion, staged within the Metamorphoses exhibition: mirrors multiply and fragment the projected image of two celestial guides moving across eras and landscapes.

Capitoline Museums

An exhibition in Palazzo dei Conservatori tracing the angelic figure across Western art from antiquity to today, through three sections: messengers, guardians and wanderers.

MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome

A single-channel video and spatial installation exposes the hidden labour behind AI, following Kurdish-Syrian refugees who classify images for AI training while facing automated drone warfare.

Fondazione Memmo · Free

Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera's first institutional show in Italy: a site-specific installation and a new body of paintings made during a Rome residency, exploring memory, loss and transcendence.

MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts

An 80-year survey of Italian architectural ideas, projects and visions, tracing eight decades of the Republic from the post-war years to contemporary practice and future scenarios.

MACRO - Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome

The Swiss artist's first major museum retrospective in Italy: 100+ works from the late 1970s on, anchored by the room installations Herumliegen and Familienraum, exploring the body, war and desire.

Centrale Montemartini

Archivio Luce multimedia show on Rome as a fashion capital, 1955-1975: 150 photographs, films, fabrics and 27 original garments by Valentino, Fendi, Forquet and the Fontana sisters.

Capitoline Museums

A retrospective at Villa Caffarelli of over 140 works showing how Diego Rivera and his contemporaries forged modern Mexican art from pre-Columbian heritage and post-revolution ideals.

Capitoline Museums

A 1:1, roughly 13-metre reconstruction of the 4th-century colossus of Emperor Constantine, displayed in the garden of Villa Caffarelli using casts of the surviving original fragments.

Museo dell'Ara Pacis

An immersive evening videomapping experience that restores the altar's original polychromy, animating its marble reliefs with light, music and multilingual narration on a roughly 45-minute route inside the monument.

La Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (GNAM)

GNAMC's Artist of the Year turns the entrance hall into a year-long participatory lab, with 40+ works including four monumental 'Theatre of Commons' tapestries, drawings and a light sculpture.

Capitoline Museums

A Pinacoteca display using scientific imaging to reveal the creative process behind unfinished paintings by artists such as Palma il Vecchio, Guido Reni and Garofalo.

MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts

Barcelona and New York studio TAKK fills MAXXI's lobby with six mobile sculptural elements made of low-carbon and living materials, exploring new ways of coexistence.

Capitoline Museums

A long-running display in Palazzo Clementino of over 660 polychrome marbles from the Imperial age, from the Santarelli collection, illustrating Rome's history through coloured stone.