Exhibitions to see in November in Italy From major retrospectives on Munch, Berman, and Mucha to the photography of Helmut Newton
November in Italy is not just fog and cozy checkered blankets for lazing on the couch. It’s the month when the light changes, becoming more slanted and intimate, preparing us for the approaching Christmas magic. But before the gift rush and family lunches wear us out, we can still carve out time to wander aimlessly through the halls of Italian museums, rediscovering our sense of wonder. From the Alps to the islands, from major cultural capitals to provincial galleries, Italy turns into a stage of art that speaks of memory and future, of bodies and landscapes, of dreams and artificial intelligences. There are long-awaited comebacks, like Munch’s, monumental retrospectives such as the one dedicated to Eugene Berman, and more experimental paths like Ahmet Öğüt’s reflection in Venice. The art of November questions us, welcomes us, and opens a dialogue with our times. Here are the exhibitions to see in Italy during the month that opens winter with a blaze of beauty.
Exhibitions to see in November 2025 in Italy
Eugene Berman – Rovereto
Rovereto once again becomes the capital of art with the most extensive retrospective ever dedicated to Eugene Berman, painter, traveler, and cosmopolitan dreamer. The Mart’s exhibition, Modern Classic, features over two hundred works, including paintings, drawings, and documents, tracing the life of an artist who made dreams his aesthetic homeland. From aristocratic Saint Petersburg to Parisian exile, from New York’s theaters to the metaphysical ruins of Rome, Berman moved through the 20th century with a solitary, poetic stride. His language, suspended between surrealism and classicism, conveys the melancholy of someone who lost his home yet continues to build an ideal one through painting. A refined and moving exhibition, inviting visitors to rediscover the modernity of myth.
Title: Eugene Berman. Modern Classic
When: until March 1, 2026
Where: MART, Rovereto
Beverly Pepper - Bologna
In Bologna, public space transforms into poetic matter thanks to Beverly Pepper, the American sculptor who chose Italy as her home and creative laboratory. The exhibition Space Outside, curated by Beatrice Benedetti, retraces the career of one of the great figures of contemporary sculpture, from land art to urban installations. CUBO hosts thirty-six works, including monumental sculptures, models, watercolors, and photographs, documenting her constant pursuit of balance among art, nature, and architecture. From the shining surfaces of corten steel to the totems rising against the sky (Prisms, Virgo Rectangle Twist), Pepper’s works speak of dialogue and connection,of a beauty that invites participation rather than imposing itself. “Art is a shared space,” the artist once said, and this exhibition perfectly embodies that idea. Visitors will experience a journey blending matter and spirit, body and landscape, restoring the vision of a living, collective, deeply human sculpture.
Title: Beverly Pepper. Space Outside
When: until January 24, 2026
Where: CUBO, Bologna
Luigi Gentile - Naples
Naples looks into the mirror and recognizes itself in the colors of Luigi Gentile, doctor and painter, a man of science and poetry, who transformed his professional experience into a unique way of seeing the world. Napolitudine, the title of the exhibition open until December 2, 2025, is an invented word, but it perfectly describes the deep and contradictory feeling that ties Neapolitans to their city. In over two hundred works displayed at Castel Nuovo, Gentile paints a Naples that is no postcard cliché but a living creature, full of alleys, faces, legends, and sea sunrises. Each canvas is an emotional X-ray: colors vibrate like voices, forms dissolve into light and nostalgia. Napolitudine celebrates a mythical, ever-changing city that constantly reinvents itself. Part of the Napoli2500 celebrations (marking the city’s 2,500 years), the exhibition speaks to anyone who has ever loved a place so much it became painting, or at least an indelible memory.
Title: Napolitudine. Il viaggio di Partenope nella pittura di Luigi Gentile
When: October 31 – December 2, 2025
Where: Castel Nuovo, Napoli
Helmut Newton - Caraglio
In the heart of Piedmont, a former silk factory becomes the ideal home for the visual “weaves” of Helmut Newton. The exhibition at the Filatoio di Caraglio gathers over one hundred photographs by the German master, both iconic and previously unseen, capturing the full erotic and theatrical tension of his work. From Charlotte Rampling’s nude at Hôtel Nord-Pinus in Arles to portraits of Kate Moss, Carla Bruni, and Monica Bellucci, Newton depicted strong, self-aware women with a gaze that revolutionized fashion photography and beyond. As the title suggests, the exhibition, curated by Matthias Harder, director of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, intertwines fashion and provocation, body and power, biography and vision, revealing a unique artist. The result is a show that speaks of desire and control, of art as an act of freedom and seduction.
Title: Helmut Newton. Intrecci
When: until March 1, 2026
Where: Il Filatoio, Caraglio, Cuneo
Edvard Munch - Mestre
The Candiani Cultural Center in Mestre hosts Munch and the Expressionist Revolution. Curated by the Venice Civic Museums Foundation, the exhibition stages a dialogue between Edvard Munch and the artists across Europe who inherited his legacy. From his early engravings to darker works, the show reveals how Munch transformed anguish into form, anticipating themes that still resonate today: loneliness, the crisis of the self, the fear of time. His visions converse with those of Ensor, Redon, Kirchner, Dix, and Beckmann, creating a mosaic of emotions and vivid colors. More than a history of European Expressionism, this is a meditation on art’s essence as cry and catharsis, for those who believe that art, at times, is the only way to stay alive.
Title: Munch e la rivoluzione espressionista
When: until March 1, 2026
Where: Centro Culturale Candiani, Mestre
Fata Morgana - Milan
With Fata Morgana. Memories from the Invisible, the Nicola Trussardi Foundation brings one of the most fascinating exhibitions of the season to Palazzo Morando, a journey that unites art, mysticism, and history through the shadow zones of thought. Inspired by the legendary figure of Fata Morgana (the enchantress of Arthurian legend, guardian of illusions, and symbol of freedom), the exhibition explores how, over centuries, eccentric practices have challenged artistic and social conventions, opposing gender hierarchies and the limits of rationality. At its heart are sixteen paintings by Hilma af Klint, pioneer of spiritual abstraction, whose mediumistic works preceded by years the research of Kandinsky and Mondrian. Around her orbit visionary figures such as Georgiana Houghton, Emma Kunz, Hélène Smith, Eusapia Palladino, and Carol Rama, alongside contemporary voices like Judy Chicago, Marianna Simnett, Diego Marcon, and Chiara Fumai. The result is an atlas of the invisible, composed of automatic drawings, spirit photographs, ritual objects, and multimedia installations, guiding visitors through utopias, mental drifts, and radical alternatives to dominant rationality.
Title: Fata Morgana: memorie dall’invisibile
When: until November 30, 2025
Where: Palazzo Morando, Milan
Alphonse Mucha - Rome
In Rome, Palazzo Bonaparte becomes a garden of Art Nouveau thanks to a grand exhibition dedicated to Alphonse Mucha. A triumph of beauty and seduction gathers over two hundred works, posters, jewelry, illustrations, and photographs, that capture the timeless charm of an era. From Sarah Bernhardt’s theatrical muses to the floral decorations that conquered Europe, Mucha turned graphic design into total art, blending painting, design, and spirituality. The exhibition is not only a celebration of the Liberty style but also a reflection on beauty as a universal language. Rome offers him the stage he deserves, and Palazzo Bonaparte, with its ornate rooms and views over Piazza Venezia, becomes the perfect setting for this Art Nouveau dream.
Title: Alphonse Mucha. Un trionfo di bellezza e seduzione
When: until March 8, 2026
Where: Palazzo Bonaparte, Rome
Fotografia in Puglia - Galatina
In the heart of Salento, the Gigi Rigliaco Gallery in Galatina celebrates twenty-five years of Apulian photography with Ricognizione 25, a collective project that brings together established and emerging photographers. The goal: to tell the story of change from 2000 to 2025 through the eyes of those who have looked at Puglia with attention, love, and unease. The journey covers all genres, from documentary to conceptual landscape, portraiture, and identity research. Themes of abandonment and rebirth emerge, as well as the relationship between territory and memory, and the transformation of the South into a new creative frontier. Each shot is a fragment of time, a piece of light building an emotional geography.
Title: Ricognizione 25. Sguardo alla fotografia in Puglia 2000-2025
When: until November 30, 2025
Where: Gigi Rigliaco Gallery, Galatina
Giacomo Balla - Pistoia
In Visita | Giacomo Balla s a double tribute to one of the fathers of Futurism. Hosted in Palazzo de’ Rossi in Pistoia and in Parma, the project brings together works from both public and private collections, offering an intimate and comprehensive look at the revolution of light and movement. From his early Divisionist experiments to the explosions of Futurist energy, the exhibition follows Balla’s path of continuous experimentation, rooted in science, color, and rhythm. Documents, photographs, and archival materials enrich a narrative that is also a spiritual biography: the artist as inventor, as dreamer of a world where art could improve everyday life. In Visita is an opportunity to rediscover not only the artist but also the man who turned painting into a language of energy and hope.
Title: In Visita | Giacomo Balla
When: until February 22, 2026
Where: Palazzo de’ Rossi, Pistoia
Ahmet Öğüt - Venice
Neither artificial nor intelligent, the new exhibition by Turkish artist Ahmet Öğüt, arrives in Venice, offering an ironic yet profound reflection on the relationship between artificial intelligence and human creativity. Presented at the A plus A Gallery, the show combines installations, videos, and participatory projects that overturn the logic of technological power. Öğüt invites us to ask what remains of the author in the age of algorithms: who truly creates, the machine or the human? His language, both poetic and political, transforms the exhibition space into a laboratory of ideas, where error becomes a resource and irony a form of resistance. In a Venice increasingly at the crossroads of contemporary art, neither artificial nor intelligent is a chance to reflect on the future of creative thought.
Title: Ahmet Öğüt. neither artificial nor interlligent
When: November 6, 2025 – February 8, 2026
Where: A plus A Gallery, Venice