DISCOVER: Rome’s Must-See Art Exhibitions in 2025
Rome’s history may be glorious, but its 2025 art exhibition line-up proves the Eternal City does anything but live in the past. Monumental inflatables float alongside Munch’s soul-stirring masterpieces, while Pietro Ruffo explores humanity’s dichotomy as both creator and destroyer of nature.
From experimental photography to interactive art, Rome’s 2025 exhibition calendar shows why it’s still the world’s cultural compass. Here’s everywhere you need to be (and when) to witness history in the making.
The Wonderful Last Minute
29 October 2024 to 16 February 2025
“If we could condense our universe’s 13.8 billion years in a single year, homo sapiens would appear on the stroke of midnight; in the final minute of 31 December”
A creative response to humanity’s impact on the planet, L’ultimo meraviglioso minuto (the wonderful last minute) explores Earth through the lens of deep time. Unfolding through over fifty works across painting, architecture, and video art, Pietro Ruffo traces mankind’s existence from a time when plants and minerals tell stories of a different world. One before human existence.
Using a language that combines aesthetics and critique, Pietro Ruffo creates a visual narrative in which past and future intertwine. Each of the four thematic rooms invites you to confront the indelible mark we leave on Earth as both creator and destroyer, and what possibilities we have of building a new relationship with the environment.
Journey into Pop Art
13 September 2024 to 31 March 2025
La Vaccheria — once a humble farmhouse-turned-stable — has morphed into the city’s buzzing Pop Art headquarters as part of this free 2025 exhibition. Viaggio nella Pop Art (Journey into Pop Art) showcases 200 works spanning eight decades of artistic rebellion. Warhol’s “Liza Minnelli and Cow” shares space with Lichtenstein’s “Sunrise” in this free exhibition, while contemporary artists like Ilaria Rezzi inject fresh energy with her surrealist blue men.
The show’s three-part journey travels from American Pop icons through female New Pop pioneers, before landing in Rome’s own 1960s Pop Art revolution. Curated by Giuliano Gasparotti and Francesco Mazzei, this free exhibition charts nearly eight decades of the movement’s development, from its American roots to its distinctive Italian interpretations.
Tickets are free, so no need to book ahead.
Franco Fontana. Retrospective
13 December 2024 to 31 August 2025
“Photography is not what we see; it is what we are”
Celebrating the geometric lines and riot of colours that have made Franco Fontana a household name, this exhibition at the Ara Pacis Museum pays homage to one of Italy’s most renowned contemporary photographers. From Prague’s geometric skylines to the sun-drenched curves of swimming pools, each of the 200 images on display at the Ara Pacis Museum captures the visual poetry of everyday scenes — a facet the Modena master was oh-so apt at doing throughout his life.
Highlights include his groundbreaking 1978 “Skyline” series, intimate studio recreations, and hypnotic American landscapes. The exhibition concludes with his fashion work and advertising campaigns, proving his influence extends far beyond traditional photography.
In Praise of Diversity
29 October 2024 to 16 February 2025
Aesthetically appealing, scientifically backed and deeply informative. This exhibition at Palazzo Esposizioni shines a light on the delicate balances within ecosystems and the necessity of individual and collective responsibility for their preservation.
It’s a physical and imaginative journey through Italy’s wildlife that makes full use of the visuals, artefacts, videos and reconstructions on display. Be prepared to be shrunk down to the size of an insect or get cosy with the intricate veins of a leaf, all in the name of revealing the hidden poetry of our natural world.
Euphoяia – Art is in the Air
20 December 2024 to 30 March 2025
After captivating over 6 million visitors worldwide, the Balloon Museum lands at Rome’s La Nuvola with a spectacular celebration of inflatable art. Twenty monumental interactive installations transform the space into a playground of imagination, where childhood whimsy meets contemporary artistic expression.
From floating sculptures to immersive environments, this world premiere exhibition showcases how some of today’s most innovative artists are using air itself as their medium. Each piece invites visitors to interact, explore, and play, turning the traditional ‘look but don’t touch’ gallery experience on its head. It’s art that quite literally fills the space with wonder, featuring works by internationally acclaimed artists like Carsten Höller, Philippe Parreno, and Marta Minujín.
Munch. The Inner Scream
11 February 2025 to 2 June 2025
For the first time in two decades, Rome welcomes back the master of existential art as Palazzo Bonaparte hosts Italy’s largest-ever Munch retrospective. Fresh from its record-breaking run in Milan, this exhibition brings 100 masterpieces from Oslo’s Munch Museum to the heart of Rome, including one of the iconic versions of “The Scream.”
Journey through the Norwegian artist’s most evocative works, from the haunting “Despair” to the mesmerizing “Girls on the Bridge” and the ethereal “Starry Night.” Curated by Munch expert Patricia G. Berman, each piece offers a window into the artist’s profound exploration of human emotion and his revolutionary approach to Expressionism.
Guido Guidi. Col tempo, 1956-2024
13 December 2024 to 11 May 2025
It’s all eyes on MAXXI’s Gallery 1 as they open the doors to Guido Guidi’s personal archive. Col tempo (With time) brings together over 400 photographs — many never before seen — that chronicle his artistic evolution from the experimental 1960s to his contemporary work.
Beyond the photographs themselves, visitors are invited into Guidi’s creative sanctuary through his personal notebooks, vintage cameras, paintings, and documentary footage. It’s a rare glimpse into the mind and methods of a master who transformed Italian landscape photography, revealed through both his familiar domestic scenes and his architectural studies.
Tony Cragg: Infinite and beautiful forms
9 November 2024 to 4 May 2025
It’s not every day one of Britain’s most innovative artists takes over the imposing halls of the Baths of Diocletian. Made of bronze, wood, travertine, fibreglass, and steel, the 18 sculptures that make up Infinite forme e bellissime (Infinite and beautiful forms) are a testament to Cragg’s boundless experimentation with form and material; each piece dancing between abstraction and reality, evoking everything from sea waves to plant structures. It’s an enchanting dialogue with the ancient Roman architecture that surrounds them.
The exhibition spills beyond the museum walls into Rome’s historic centre, where additional sculptures transform the urban landscape into an open-air gallery, marrying contemporary vision with classical heritage.
