among friends: Milan’s premier art fair miart to celebrate friendship

Milan’s renowned modern and contemporary art fair – and Italy’s largest, by exhibitor numbers – miart has revealed the plans for its 2025 edition.

Running from 4-6 April as a driving force within Milan Art Week, miart’s 29th edition will showcase 179 galleries from 30 countries across five continents, bringing together more than a century’s worth of art under one roof.

Under the artistic direction of Ricciardi, miart 2025 will present works from the 20th century through to today, spanning three main sections: Established, Emergent, and Portal. Art lovers will find everything from early modern masterpieces to cutting-edge contemporary pieces, with a special emphasis on the Italian artists who played a crucial role in shaping Milan’s cultural legacy.

International heavyweights participating in the Established section include Victoria Miro (London, Venice), MASSIMODECARLO (Milan, London, Hong Kong,Paris, Beijing),  Ben Brown Fine Arts (London, Hong Kong, Venice), and Meyer Riegger (Berlin, Karlsruhe, Basel, Seoul). Curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini, Emergent, on the other hand, showcases the latest generation of artists, featuring 25 galleries from across the globe.

Portal, curated for the first time by Alessio Antoniolli – Director of Triangle Network in London and curator at Fondazione Memmo in Rome – will, as Ricciardi tells Euronews Culture feature ten galleries, “each presenting a monographic project that transcends disciplinary, temporal, and spatial boundaries” in order to “unveil hidden narratives and explore new creative territories”.

The title of the 2025 edition of miart, among friends, Ricciardi explains, stands as a tribute to the legacy of Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008), marking the centenary of his birth. It also reflects the core values of his work: “openness to the world, interdisciplinarity, and commitment to dialogue and collaboration”.

“Embracing the approach of the American artist, the fair aims, for its 29th edition, to energise the network of relationships built over the years, positioning itself as a driving force behind an ideal festival of contemporary arts for the city – that is, the Milano Art Week,” Ricciardi says.

This commitment is reflected in a series of initiatives that celebrate “friendship” in the art world, “understood as an equal, reciprocal, and genuinely supportive relationship among all the stakeholders in the art system”. For Ricciardi, this includes “the fair, the institutions, galleries, artists, curators, collectors.”

Among these initiatives is ‘Rauschenberg e il Novecento’ at the Museo del Novecento, which will explore Rauschenberg’s legacy, linking his work to key Italian movements like Futurism and Arte Povera. Also bringing the theme to life will be the exhibition ‘John Giorno: a Labour of LOVE at Triennale Milano’, which will shine a light on American poet and performer John Giorno (1936–2019) and explore traces of his deep friendships and collaborations with major figures from 20th-century art, literature, and music, including Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring, Patti Smith, and Andy Warhol.

miart 2025 will take place at Allianz MiCo from 4-6 April. Find out more here.