XVI Florence Biennale 2027

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Italia
Florence
XVI Florence Biennale 2027

International Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Design in Florence
Fortezza da Basso | 23 - 31 October 2027

The XIV Florence Biennale, which will take place at the Fortezza da Basso (Florence, Italy), from 14 to 22 October 2023, will engage participating artists and visitors in a rich programme of artistic and cultural activities. Aside from the main exhibition, there will be collateral events, performances, workshops, conferences, and lectures relating to the theme of the new edition: "I Am You. Indivi

dual and Collective Identities in Contemporary Art and Design". Founded in 1997, the Florence Biennale is the major contemporary art and design exhibition in Florence (Italy) and one of the world's leading contemporary art exhibitions. More than 450 artists and designers from 71 countries participated in the latest edition (XIII Florence Biennale 2021), which has been held under the patronage of the European Parliament, Italian Commission for UNESCO, Italian Ministry of Culture, Tuscany Region, and Municipality of Florence, and was attended by more than 10,000 visitors. Within the framework of the Florence Biennale, the “Lorenzo il Magnifico” Lifetime Achievement Award (for Art) and the “Leonardo da Vinci” Lifetime Achievement Awards (for Design) are conferred to individuals who have reached pinnacles of artistic achievement for their contribution to culture: Marina Abramović, Gustavo Aceves, Refik Anadol, Sauro Cavallini, Christo & Jeanne-Claude, David Hockney, El Anatsui, Arata Isozaki, Salvatore & Wanda Ferragamo, Ferrari & Pininfarina, Gilbert & George, Anish Kapoor, Elsa Peretti (Tiffany & Co.), Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paula Scher, Oliviero Toscani, Vivienne Westwood, and Franco Zeffirelli are among the recipients of the past editions. The first announced winner of “Lorenzo il Magnifico” Lifetime Achievement Award of the XIV Florence Biennale 2023 is world-renowned American photographer and filmmaker David LaChapelle.

24/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Mirco Adobati •

Mirco Adobati, born in Bergamo in 1993, is an artist who calls for a silent revolution: the act of slowing down. His project, “Quel Paese,” emerged in 2018 from a practice of steadfast observation of villages and territories discovered during his travels, where the chaos of spontaneous architecture is transformed into visual poetry. His inquiry evolves from a tapestry of urban visions, from which he extracts individual buildings, elevating them through a unique synthesis. His background in graphic design applies a minimalism that strips the form to its essence, while his passion for surrealism becomes the language capable of liberating architecture from the constraints of gravity and logic, without compromising aesthetic beauty.

Deeply influenced by the years of social work within the field of mental health and vulnerability, Mirco has learned to find beauty where a hurried gaze sees only marginality or simple anonymity. “Quel Paese” is more than an imagery place; it is an invitation to step off the beaten path and pause, an act of poetic rebellion demonstrating that only by slowing down can we perceive the wonder hidden within the folds of reality.

23/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Alberto Sordi •

Born in La Spezia, Italy, artist Alberto Sordi began his artistic career in the 1980s with surrealist drawings and paintings. During this period, he created his first collages on paper and cardboard, assembled books using the cut-up technique, and experimented with automatic writing. His current practice, however, shifts toward exploring complex, often surreal settings, incorporating elements that evoke transformation and invite reflection on time and space. By combing images, gears, fragments of mechanisms, and found objects, which he assembles onto wood — often evoking neo-Gothic and neo-Romantic sensibilities — or canvas, Sordi constructs intricate imagery worlds that draw viewers into an intense and multifaceted visual experience.

Since the 1990s, Sordi’s work has been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including the Kyoto Biennale (2003), curated by Shozo Shimamoto; the London Biennale (2004); “En Route” at Jay Gallery in Seoul (2009); and many other exhibitions across countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Finland, and Lithuania.

Alberto Sordi

22/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Paz Sepúlveda •

Paz Sepúlveda, born in Santiago in 1968, is a Chilean visual artist. Her career began in the 1990s with figurative realism, earning early recognition, and has since evolved into a contemporary language that integrates figuration, abstraction, and symbolism. Her work is distinguished by the use of colour and drawings as means for creation and inquiry. She alternates between an expressionist approach, focused on chromatic intensity and introspection into identity and gender — highlighted in her project “Blue Women” — and a more conceptual approach, in which she explores the relationship between humanity and nature.

In Sepúlveda’s work, colour becomes pulse and atmosphere, while line reveals layers of memory, identity, and territory. Her practice offers an intimate and critical perspective, where the human and the nature intertwine in constant transformation. She has exhibited both in Chile and abroad, participating in exhibitions and art fairs in Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay, Mexico, Italy, Switzerland, and Spain. She has received the Fernando Adriasola Cruz Foundation grant, along with awards and honourable mentions in national and international competitions. Notable distinctions include a second prize at the International Watercolour Festival in Venice and a first prize at GGala Gallery in Colombia. She has also undertaken artistic residencies in Spain and Argentina.

galeriartepazita

19/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Nina Kruser •

Nina Kruser was born in Tajikistan in 1982 and later moved to Russia to pursue an art education, which became the solid foundation of her creative journey. In 1997, she entered the Ivanovo College of Art and Industrial Design, and later continued her studies at the Malutin Ivanovo Regional Art School. Kruser’s art explores individuality and the multifaceted nature of the female experience — as a woman, mother, daughter, friend, and global citizen. Her creative process is highly intuitive. Working with materials such as pencil, oil, watercolour, ink, and pigment, she builds layered compositions that are overlaid with fragmented patterns, forming mask-like structures that permeate the painting. Through these elements, Kruser reflects on how societal patterns infiltrate and shape our lives.

She is a member of the Union of Artists of Russia, the International Association of Art, and the Professional Association of Visual Artists in Germany. In 2001, she won first place at the “Wolga Artist” plein-air competition, followed by the Governor’s Scholarship from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation in Ivanovo in 2002. Her artworks are held in public and private collections, including the Ivanovo Regional Museum of Art, as well as collections in Europe and the US.

Nina Kruser

18/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Mariia Shevchenko •

Mariia Shevchenko is an artist based in the USA. She was born in Russia in 1982 and has lived in Ukraine since 1994, where she graduated from the Poltava University of Economics and Trade. In 2011, she began her artistic journey under the guidance of Anna Flegantova, focusing on classical painting techniques. This transition marked a pivotal moment in her life, as personal transformation and reinvention became central themes of her artwork. In 2012, Mariia started a successful business in the service sector and led a beauty salon until the tragic events that unfolded in her country in 2022. She and her son subsequently immigrated to California, USA.

This profound life change — and her transformation as a woman who fled from war to freedom — is reflected in her work. Mariia works with oil and acrylic on canvas. Through her paintings, she explores themes of trauma, memory, and corporeality, oscillating between document and dream, between pain and observation. In her work, bodies act as maps where every line becomes a topography of memory and where pain ceases to be mute. Since 2024, Mariia has been studying art at Orange Coast College in California, concentrating on visual storytelling and contemporary artistic expression.

17/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Ilaria Elena Pacelli •

Ilaria Elena Pacelli, born in Turin in 1982, is an Italian photographer specialising in landscape and fine art, currently based in Bavaria, Germany. Her passion for art took root in childhood, when painting and drawing were the first languages through which she expressed her creativity. While maintaining a deep connection to her origins and to the beauty of the Italian landscape, Ilaria soon discovered the transformative power of travel. Exploring new places and cultures has become an essential part of her artistic journey, enriching her vision and expanding her visual sensitivity.

Her photography is strongly influenced by the expressive power of Ansel Adams, as well as by the emotional atmospheres of 19th-century Romantic painting and the dramatic use of light characteristic of Caravaggio. These inspirations intertwine in her work, giving life to images in which the landscape becomes a stage of light, shadow, and emotion. Light is her primary tool: she uses it to capture fleeting, suspended moments that reflect her personal interpretation of the world. Each image tells a story of stillness and wonder at the imposing presence of nature. Ilaria’s work invites viewers into a space where beauty meets mystery and time seems, for an instant, to stand still.

Ilaria Elena Pacelli Photography

16/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Alessandro Leonardi •

Born in 1975, the artistic practice of Alessandro Leonardi is rooted in a family lineage that serves as both a legacy and a point of departure. He grew up in an environment rich with images and visual stimuli, surrounded by the works of his grandfather, Arcangelo Leonardi, as well as the prolific output of his father, Andrea Leonardi (Lean). From this context, the artist developed a sensitivity that extends beyond mere sight, one that becomes a tool for investigating reality.

Leonardi’s artistic journey began in 2019, outside academic tradition and sparked by an almost revelatory experience. His practice unfolds as a constant dialogue between impulse and control, expressive urgency and the need for synthesis. Rather than describing, his works evoke, drawing on visions, dreams, and memories in an attempt to capture experience before it fades. The charcoal line — often applied wet through a technique developed by the artist, introduces an unstable dimension in which boundaries appear and dissolve, suggesting rather than defining. Neither fully abstract nor strictly figurative, his work is grounded in lived experience and seeks resonance rather than effect. His art has been showcased across Italy, including Rome, Aosta, Milan, and Venice, and has received several awards.

15/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Jagoda Niebiesky •

Jagoda Niebiesky, born in Poland in 1991, is a painter whose work explores psychological landscapes that resemble places yet operate as emotional and mental states. Working between philosophy and psychology, she approaches painting as a mode of inquiry, thinking through images rather than words. Her dreamlike compositions probe perception, memory, absence, and the suspended moments just before movement or decision. Emerging from moments of dislocation and subtle dissociation, her work creates spaces suspended between stillness and transformation, reflecting on the invisible thresholds of inner life. Rather than relying on narrative, Niebiesky engages atmosphere, colour, and spatial ambiguity as her primary means of expression.

For Niebiesky, painting becomes a way to observe these states without resolving them—allowing the image to remain open, unfinished, and quietly unstable. Her work has been presented at art fairs, exhibitions, and gallery spaces across Poland, Italy, Spain and Austria.

Jagoda Niebiesky

12/06/2026

🕊️🕯️ Saying goodbye to David Hockney (1937-2026)

One of the most influential contemporary artists, whose sunlit California landscapes illuminated the art world, passed away yesterday at the age of 88.
The Florence Biennale had the honour of awarding David Hockney the International “Lorenzo il Magnifico” Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Hockney’s relentless pursuit of innovation kept his work in constant dialogue with the changing times. Through his paintings, ordinary moments of everyday life were transformed into vivid celebrations of light, colour, and movement that carried emotional depth.

“Do Remember They Can’t Cancel the Spring.” — Through his art, Hockney leaves the world forever in bloom. 🌸

12/06/2026

Meet the artist of the XVI Florence Biennale (Fortezza da Basso, Firenze 23-31 October 2027) ✨

• Roxana Ilășoaia •

Roxana Ilășoaia is a Romanian contemporary visual artist whose work investigates the relationship between sacred symbolism, emotional memory, and the human condition through a language situated between impressionism and contemporary figurative abstraction. Drawing on a background in engineering and geodesy, her artistic practice is distinguished by a strong sense of structure, spatial rhythm, and compositional precision, reinterpreted through expressive gesture and layered materiality. Working primarily with acrylic and gold leaf, Ilășoaia develops compositions in which faceless figures, sacred geometries, architectural references, and symbolic light become vehicles for themes of identity, motherhood, spirituality, vulnerability, and collective memory. Influenced by the multicultural atmosphere of Constanța, Romania, where she lives and works, her paintings propose a dialogue between intimacy and universality, tradition and contemporaneity.

Her visual research often explores the tension between fragility and transcendence, integrating chiaroscuro atmospheres with luminous gilded surfaces that evoke both iconographic traditions and contemporary emotional narratives. Through this synthesis, her work creates contemplative spaces that invite reflection on belonging, human connection, and inner transformation. Ilășoaia has participated in international exhibitions and collaborations with galleries and cultural platforms in Vienna, London, and other European contexts, continuing to expand her interdisciplinary and curatorial dialogue within contemporary art.

Roxana Ilasoaia

Indirizzo

Fortezza Da Basso, Viale Strozzi 1
Florence
50144

Telefono

+390553249173

Sito Web

http://www.florencebiennale.org/

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