Metafisica/Metafisiche: A Genealogical Atlas of Metaphysical Art in Milan

The sprawling exhibition 'Metafisica/Metafisiche' curated by Vincenzo Trione across four Milanese venues—Palazzo Reale, Museo del Novecento, Gallerie d'Italia, and Palazzo Citterio—takes a genealogical approach inspired by Michel Foucault and Aby Warburg to trace the afterlives of Giorgio de Chirico's Metaphysical art rather than its origins. The show opens with de Chirico's Ferrara period (1916 onward), leaving his foundational 1910–1915 works as a mythological echo. It maps the diffusion and metamorphosis of Metaphysical imagery across painting, conceptual art, theater, cinema, photography, design, fashion, graphic novels, architecture, and Neometaphysics, featuring artists from Carlo Carrà and Giorgio Morandi to Nathalie Du Pasquier, Aldo Rossi, Massimiliano Fuksas, and Olivo Barbieri. The curatorial concept deliberately avoids reconstructing a single origin, instead following Foucault's 'grey, meticulous, and patiently documentary' genealogy. However, the installation remains somewhat conventional, and the repeated use of 'Villa del Seminario group' risks overstating the coherence of the Ferrara hospital encounter in 1917. The exhibition runs until June 21, 2026.