La galleria Thaddaeus Ropac è entusiasta di annunciare l’apertura di un nuovo spazio nel centro di Milano all’inizio dell’autunno del 2025 e di dare il benvenuto a Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa come amministratore delegato della settima sede. Elena porta nel suo nuovo ruolo quasi venticinque anni di esperienza nel campo dell’arte moderna e contemporanea, con particolare competenza nell’arte italiana e americana.
Situated in the Palazzo Belgioioso, one of Milan’s architectural treasures close to Teatro alla Scala and Via Monte Napoleone, the renovated gallery spans two grand rooms across 280 square metres of the historic building’s first floor. The exhibition spaces extend beyond the palazzo to the Piazza Belgioioso, the prominent public square outside, where the gallery will exhibit sculptures.
Located in the city’s cultural complex, and a short distance from the Duomo di Milano, the gallery sits within the network of the city’s museums: the Pinacoteca di Brera, the Palazzo Reale, the Museo del Novecento and the newly opened modern and contemporary art museum Palazzo Citterio.
Built for Prince Alberico XII di Belgioioso d’Este, the Palazzo Belgioioso is among the finest examples of Neo-Classical architecture in Lombardy. The palatial residence was completed in 1781 by Giuseppe Piermarini and extensively restored to its former glory in 1991. The palazzo’s rooms feature period decorations, including remarkable frescoes by Martin Knoller and stuccos by Giocondo Albertolli. The public square beyond the palazzo, Piazza Belgioioso – also facing Casa Manzoni, home of Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) – will provide a public space in which the gallery will exhibit sculptures and installations by our artists.
Milano è crocevia d’Europa, l’Italia cuore pulsante del continente: un Paese che ha profondamente plasmato l’evoluzione dell’arte nel corso dei secoli e dove sono nati movimenti artistici moderni cruciali. Abbiamo sempre avvertito la mancanza dell’Italia nella nostra costellazione di gallerie europee, ritenendola importante per la nostra crescita internazionale e per lo sviluppo dei nostri artisti. Molti di loro hanno realizzato in Italia grandi mostre istituzionali con progetti inediti e ora, con la nostra nuova galleria, potremo realizzare le prime mostre in Italia di altri nostri artisti. In questi decenni abbiamo instaurato relazioni significative con collezionisti e istituzioni e il particolare slancio che Milano sta dimostrando in questi ultimi anni come destinazione artistica la rende una scelta naturale per noi. Avere il team giusto e la sede ideale è essenziale, siamo quindi molto felici di avere Elena al timone della nostra galleria milanese.
— Thaddaeus Ropac
Ho sempre ammirato l’eccezionale selezione di artisti che la galleria rappresenta e l’approccio visionario con cui Thaddaeus lavora con loro, così come il modo in cui il programma si è evoluto in modo così avvincente grazie ai nuovi artisti che si sono aggiunti negli ultimi anni. Sono molto felice di entrare a far parte del team e credo fermamente che Milano, da sempre luogo di grandi collezionisti e collezioni e ora con una fiorente scena artistica, sia la giusta scelta per la galleria e i suoi artisti. Thaddaeus Ropac Milano darà un contributo significativo all’emergere della città come destinazione artistica internazionale di primo piano.
— Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa
Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa, Executive Director, Milan
In the three decades working in the commercial gallery sector, most recently at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Elena Bonanno di Linguaglossa has been instrumental in curating major exhibitions at Arter, Istanbul; Boboli and Bardini Gardens, Florence; Galleria Borghese, Rome; MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; and the Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese. With a law degree from LUISS Guido Carli, Elena brings her astuteness to the intricacies of working with collectors and institutions. As a guest professor at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Rome, she taught courses on the art market and contemporary art. Over the past two decades, Elena has lived between Italy, Austria and the United Kingdom. Previously she has had leadership roles at Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Albion Gallery, Haunch of Venison, and Blain|Southern. Elena can now be reached at [email protected]
Our artists’ history in Milan
Thaddaeus Ropac gallery has a longstanding commitment to Italy and its art scene. We are proud to have represented the Emilio Vedova Foundation internationally since 2014. Emilio Vedova (1919–2006), one of the leading exponents of Art Informel in Europe, was most recently honoured in Milan with a major retrospective at the Palazzo Reale in 2019–20. Curated by Germano Celant (1940–2020), the show marked the centenary of the Italian artist’s birth.
Emilio Vedova and Georg Baselitz shared a strong creative relationship and a mutual admiration tracing back to the 1960s, which endured until Vedova’s death. At the Venice Biennale in 2007, the artists’ works were exhibited together for the first time. Italy itself has played an important role in the work of Georg Baselitz, who has a studio in Imperia. The Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, presented Baselitz – Academy in 2019, focusing on Baselitz’s reflections on his own artistic evolution and his engagement with academic traditions.
Continuing the gallery’s history of programming exhibitions that draw attention to lesser-known pioneering artists, a solo exhibition of work by Italian artist Medardo Rosso (1858–1928), one of the founders of modern sculpture, was presented in the inaugural year of Thaddaeus Ropac’s London gallery (2017). Revered by his peers, Guillaume Apollinaire described Rosso as the ‘greatest living sculptor’, and Auguste Rodin wrote of his ‘wild admiration’ for the artist. Medardo Rosso: Sight Unseen was the first exhibition to focus on Rosso’s relationship with London. It featured rarely exhibited works and, for the first time in the UK, presented the artist’s own photographs of his sculptures and drawings.
In the 1970s and 80s, Italy was formative for Joseph Beuys (1921–86). The artist spent significant time in Turin, Naples and Rome, and regularly exhibited in Milan at Studio Marconi, a venue that played a pivotal role in introducing his work to Italian audiences. Taking Italy’s rich heritage as its chief inspiration, Olivestone is a major work of Beuys’s late career. It was made from an original 18th-century oil pan – a large sandstone basin traditionally used in Italian cellars to decant olive oil for consumption – which he saturated with approximately 200 litres of olive oil. Installed in 1984 at the Castello di Rivoli, its upper surface slick with oil, the sculpture reflected the richly decorated ceilings of the palace. More recently, both Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys were the focus of an exhibition at Fondazione Antonio Mazzotta in Milan (2007–08).
For the 2004 opening of Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, Anselm Kiefer created his monumental installation The Seven Heavenly Palaces, where it remains a permanent exhibit. In 2015, five large-scale paintings were added to complement the original work. In 2012, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov presented The Happiest Man, their vast and site-specific installation, at the same venue.
Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, has staged landmark exhibitions for a number of our artists. Turn Me On (2022–23) was the most extensive exhibition in Italy to date of the work of Sylvie Fleury. Conceived specifically for the space, and featuring both new commissions and historic works, the exhibition provided an immersive exploration of the main themes of her practice. From 2011 to 2012, Pinacoteca Agnelli presented more than 140 of THE URETHRA POSTCARD PICTURES (2009) by Gilbert & George, in addition to early examples of the artists’ postal art dating back to the late 1960s.
Many more artists represented by the gallery have had exhibitions across the breadth of Milan’s institutions. These include Oliver Beer’s Hypertimes, FuturDome (2019); VALIE EXPORT’s The Desire of Freedom, Palazzo Reale (2013); Sylvie Fleury’s A Noir, Triennale Milano (1998); Amos Gitai’s Strade / Ways Talking to Gabriele – Carpet – Lullaby to my Father, Palazzo Reale (2014–15); Sturtevant’s The Great Mother, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi (2015); Hans Josephsohn at Fondazione ICA Milano (2019); Tom Sachs’s solo exhibition at Fondazione Prada (2006); and Andreas Slominski’s solo exhibition at Fondazione Prada (2003). Donald Judd has featured in numerous exhibitions, most recently K at Fondazione Prada (2020). Lee Bul featured in Gorgeous Isn’t Good Enough at Pirelli HangarBicocca (2005) and Ron Mueck had his first solo exhibition in Italy at the Triennale Milano (2023). Richard Deacon’s work is held in the public collection of Fondazione Prada.
The Milan gallery provides an ideal locus for our wider activities across Italy, including the support for our artists in their inclusion in and exhibitions coinciding with the Venice Biennale. Most recently this has included Alex Katz at Fondazione Giorgio Cini (2024); Martha Jungwirth at Galleria di Palazzo Cini (2024), and previously Joseph Beuys (2022) and Adrian Ghenie (2019); and Daniel Richter at the Ateneo Veneto (2022). Major exhibitions in Venice have also recently included Georg Baselitz’s career survey at Gallerie dell’Accademia (2019) and Anselm Kiefer’s monumental installation at the Palazzo Ducale (2022).
