Milan’s Pinacoteca di Brera has opened a major exhibition juxtaposing garments designed by Giorgio Armani, the legendary stylist who died this month, with paintings by the Renaissance artists Caravaggio, Bellini and Raphael. Titled Giorgio Armani: Milano, per amore, the show features more than 120 Armani-designed items arranged among the museum’s permanent exhibition.
The show was unveiled on Wednesday (24 September), as Milan Fashion Week was getting underway. On 28 September, Brera will also host a Giorgio Armani-curated catwalk in the museum’s courtyard, a stone’s throw from the stylist’s lavish Via Borgonuovo home. Both initiatives were originally conceived to celebrate 50 years since the launch of the Armani fashion house in the district, where its creator had lived since the 1980s. “Armani was and remains the symbol of Brera,” Angelo Crespi, the Pinacoteca’s director, tells The Art Newspaper.
Armani oversaw planning of the exhibition until shortly before his death, so it can be seen as his final project. “All decisions about the itinerary were his,” Crespi said.
Some of the garments on display appear to recall details from individual works at the Pinacoteca. A cluster of dark garments with white accents, including a black-and-white sequined suit and a velvet tailcoat adorned with a floral brooch, emphasise the chiaroscuro dramatism of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus (1606). Nearby, mannequins in sand-coloured blouses and cotton trench coats recall the veiled Muslim women kneeling in Bellini’s vast St. Mark Preaching in Alexandria (1504–1507).
However, Crespi claimed that, during a visit last year to the museum, Armani said he was more interested in capturing the “atmosphere and colours” of the museum’s rooms. “He paused before Mantegna’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ and said: ‘I don’t want to compare myself with these masters’,” Crespi recalled of the visit.
An installation view of Giorgio Armani: Milano, per amore
Photo: @agnese_bedini @melaniadallegrave @dsl__studio_
The exhibition aims to allow visitors to appreciate asepects of the garments and paintings on show in a new light. “Art history and fashion come together, inviting visitors to discover striking chromatic and material contrasts,” a press release says. Armani exhibited at other museums during his lifetime, including at a 2001 show at New York’s Guggenheim. Gian Luca Bauzano, a fashion writer at Corriere della Sera, says that show broke new ground: “For the first time, a fashion designer structured a major monographic exhibition around himself,” he says.
For Brera, the Armani show is part of a drive to broaden the museum’s appeal beyond traditional art lovers. Since the launch of Grande Brera—the rebranded museum complex that encompasses the Palazzo Citterio, a new modern art space, and Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper—visitor numbers have boomed. Brera and Citterio alone are projected to draw 600,000 visitors by year-end, a 20% rise on last year, Crespi says.
- Giorgio Armani: Milano, per amore, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan, until 11 January