miart 2026

Silvio Coppola, ‘Credenza 602’, Pranzo series, 1964; STUDIO2046, ‘Seat with a contemporary intervention in glossy pink lacquer’, 2026
COURTESY: Bernini Gallery

IN APRIL THE lilac wisteria blooms in Milan, filling the air with scent. The city is on show, hosting the international modern and contemporary art fair, miart, followed by the largest gathering devoted to design in Europe, the week of Salone del Mobile. Galleries and museums open their most impressive exhibitions over this period, while every available nook in the city – from Renaissance palazzi to industrial warehouses – becomes a platform for the display of exceptional art or startling objects. 

Carlo Scarpa, ‘Applique Trilobi’, 1960
COURTESY: Bernini Gallery

As the latest haven for high net worth individuals, Milan is booming; alongside, the gallery scene has intensified and the competition to capture attention has grown. Miart, celebrating this year its thirtieth anniversary, is meeting the challenge by moving to the eye-catching Allianz MiCo building on the edge of the buzzing CityLife shopping district.

South Wing, Allianz MiCo
COURTESY: miart

Under the new direction of Nicola Ricciardi, miart has chosen to mark its birthday with the bold title “New Directions: miart, but different.” The title pays homage to John Coltrane’s famous 1963 album – honouring the Jazz saxophonist, born 100 years ago, and his exemplary genius for transforming, as the press release suggests, “a familiar standard into fertile ground for innovation.” The fair hopes that the new location, combined with thoughtful programming, will enable dynamic interaction between established galleries and emerging contemporary platforms, different eras and genres, conventional stands and more thematic presentations.

Valentina Cameranesi Sgrio, ‘Urcinus’, 2019
COURTESY: Valentina Cameranesi Sgrio & Satine, Venezia / PHOTOGRAPH: Charles Negre

For design lovers, miart is a perfect palate cleanser before the following week’s blowout. This is a fair dedicated to collectors. It provides a window into the depth and richness of Italian art and design of the twentieth and twenty-first century, whilst also opening a space for parallel movements in Europe and the Americas. Amidst the 160 galleries from 24 countries there are just four galleries, all from Italy, dedicated to design. They do not, however, feel at all out of place. As Michele Marelli of Eredi Marelli explains: “We have been doing this fair since 2019 … The audience is very interesting for us because they match art with design.”

Paolo Buffa, ‘Coffee table’, 1952-53
COURTESY: Eredi Marelli

This assessment is shared by Mattia Martinelli, director of venerable gallery Robertaebasta – founded by his mother Roberta Tagliavini in Milan in 1967 – which combines art, objects and design in its stores in Milan and London. Until this year they have never taken part in miart, but Martinelli believes the fair has now become “the most important appointment for modern and contemporary art in Italy. I am always seeing my best clients there.” So he has decided to meet them with his best offerings.

Fernando and Humberto Campana ‘Bamboca’ sofa, 2017
COURTESY: Robertaebasta

Each gallery takes a different slant. Eredi Marelli, who have been manufacturing bespoke furniture near Lake Como since 1834, are eager to emphasise the connection between craftsmanship and design. As Marelli explains, “Many important designers and architects worked directly with artisans.” They are creating three different domestic landscapes. An entrance hall is conjured with a rare library table designed in 1940 by Milan-born architect and designer Gugliemo Ulrich, made by Eredi Marelli, spare in design but luxurious in its striking use of French red marble, fluted mahogany and brass.

Guglielmo Ulrich, ‘Entrance table’, circa 1940 (detail)
COURTESY: Eredi Marelli

The living room foregrounds the work of Paolo Buffa, a versatile and inventive mid-twentieth century Italian designer. A sofa, which Buffa made with the artisan Mario Quarti, is paired with a graceful rosewood and Peruvian onyx side-table from 1952-3 and a mirror, both realised with cabinet-maker Serafino Arrighi. “These names live together,” Marelli comments. The final space, a dressing room, is dedicated to Ico Parisi, including an elegant wardrobe, constructed in 1962 in Indian rosewood by Eredi Marelli, a rare collection of ten photographs, taken and printed by the designer, and one painting of a cat.

Ico Parisi, ‘Wardrobe’, circa 1962
COURTESY: Eredi Marelli

Robertaebasta has also gone for scene-setting as a strategy. In the words of Martinelli: “we want to give people an idea of how they might decorate their house with our pieces.” They have put together, against a warm dark brown background, a combination of rare design pieces from different eras. A candy-pink ‘Bamboca’ sofa, designed by Fernando and Humberto Campana in 2017 (from the ‘Objets Nomades’ collection by Louis Vuitton) is one of the highlights. The sofa is named after a type of Brazilian candy, but is inspired by the amorphous architecture of clouds, with eleven cushions squeezed into its calf-leather armature for comfortable lounging. Also noteworthy is a boldly experimental, sculptural walnut, glass and metal desk designed in 1951 by Renato Angeli and Claudio Olivieri, with panels of intensely coloured eglomisé glass. The pieces will be complemented by sculptures by Arturo Martini and Lucio Fontana. “It will be mixed together as in a house,” Martinelli says. 

Renato Angeli and Claudio Olivieri, ‘Walnut Desk’, 1951
COURTESY: Robertaebasta

In a curatorial habit developed over the years, but reflecting also the jazz-inflected idea of themes and variations, the Milanese stalwart Galleria Luisa Delle Piane has chosen to focus on three designers related by concept. In a year when Andrea Branzi, an artist with whom the gallery has had a long association, is being celebrated with an exhibition in the nearby Triennale Milano (‘Andrea Branzi by Toyo Ito: Continuous Present’ until 4th October), he was an obvious choice, setting the theme of the interplay of the natural and the artificial.

Andreas Branzi, ‘Immersioni #2’, 2023
COURTESY: Galleria Luisa Delle Piane

His sculpture, ‘Immersioni #2’, from a 2023 series, features an expressive plant stump, daubed with green paint and flecks of gold leaf, immersed in inert plexiglas. This will be displayed alongside a large-scale wooded horse created by sculptor Mario Ceroli in 1968, for a production of Shakespeare’s Richard III, where at the end, the King, desperate on the battle field, offers a kingdom for a horse, only to die, when no horse – and no other means of escape – materialises. There are also some playful embroidered wooden vases created last year as part of the project Nullus Locus, a collaboration between architect Massimiliano Locatelli, design director of Prada, Fabio Zambernardi, and embroidery crafter Graziano Giordani; a witty take on what is illusion and what is real.

Massimiliano Locatelli, Fabio Zambernardi and Graziano Giordani, ‘An embroidered wooden vase’, 2025
COURTESY: Galleria Luisa Delle Piane / PHOTOGRAPH: © Giovanni Galanello

Hybridity is also the theme of the display of Rome-based Bernini Gallery. Alongside classic pieces by Venetian master Carlo Scarpa, and a painting by Francesco Vezzoli, they are showing several vintage pieces by Gianfranco Frattini and Silvio Coppola reformulated with glossy pink lacquer interventions by young designer Daniele Daminelli, of STUDIO2046. Thought provoking, the total effect for each piece is, as Galli Gabriele, owner of Bernini Gallery, suggests, “like a jazz standard, where the foundation is solid but leaves room for improvisation. The rhythm is given by geometry, while the reinterpretation creates a new visual dynamic.” The gallery, a miart regular, welcomes these opportunities to rethink its own archive. For this edition, Gabriele notes, “the dialogue also extends to contemporary art, creating a composition that – much like jazz – thrives on references, improvisation, and harmonies between seemingly distant elements.”

Gianfranco Frattini, ‘Ovenque’ chair, 1980; STUDIO2046, ‘Seat with a contemporary intervention in glossy pink lacquer’, 2026
COURTESY: Bernini Gallery

Underlining the close ties between art and design, first time participant Satine gallery, a new venture based in Venice and here exhibiting in the Emergent section, has chosen to show design objects by one of its female artists. Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi, currently the focus of a solo show in their Venice space, trained in design in Rome and works principally in art direction for fashion campaigns and as a set designer. For her show in Venice, and in addition for miart, she has produced one-off tables, a screen, and a range of experimental, theatrical objects from materials as diverse as copper, bronze, ribbons, ceramic and borosilicate glass. The dance of ideas is inseparable from the function each object performs.

Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi, ‘Senza titolo’, 2022
COURTESY: Valentina Cameranesi Sgrio & Satine, Venezia / PHOTOGRAPH: © Jeremias Morandell