WAEL SHAWKY | Solo show | Drama 1882 | Talbot Rice Gallery

I Am Hymns of the New Temples is a site-specific exhibition that entirely transforms La Grande Halle of LUMA Arles into an immersive experience that blurs the lines between the metaphysical and the real. The site of ancient Pompeii, the legendary city that was buried under ash and volcanic debris for centuries, is at the center of his display. Its outstanding state of conservation offers a fascinating record of the diversity of cultures that shaped its unique identity, at the crossroads of civilizations and trade routes. Intertwining history, stories and contemporary narratives, Shawky reinterprets the ancient Greek myth of creation, through a spectacular choreography of movement, images and sounds, alongside unique sculptural and painterly elements, reflecting on the human need to understand and make sense of the world.

• LUMA Arles
• 5 luglio – 30 novembre 2025

In 2005, Marina Abramović re-performed seven iconic performance artworks, including Joseph Beuys’s How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare, with full permission and documentation. This material now informs ongoing research at the Joseph Beuys Archive and Museum Schloss Moyland, in collaboration with the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI). Building on this, a group of international artists will create new, site-specific, long-duration performances at the museum to reactivate its Beuys collection. For the first time, MAI will co-organise a month-long residency at Schloss Moyland, where artists will develop performances inspired by their on-site archival research, challenging traditional museum practices in favour of experimental approaches.

• Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau, Germany
• Am Schloß 4, 47551 Bedburg-Hau, Germany
• 13 luglio – 26 ottobre 2025

From 26 July to 31 August 2025, Castelbasso once again becomes a capital of contemporary art with a solo exhibition of Gilberto Zorio, a central figure of Arte Povera and a prominent name on the Italian and international art scene. Curated by Ilaria Bernardi, the exhibition — hosted at Palazzo De Sanctis and Palazzo Clemente — offers an exciting journey through the artist’s 60-year career, showcasing a selection of 30 iconic works from the mid-1960s to the present day.

• Borgo Medievale di Castelbasso
• Via Giovanni de Sensi, 341, CASTELLALTO, TE
• 26 luglio – 31 agosto 2025

Conceived by Haim Steinbach to coincide with his exhibition at MACS, the Objects for People project features six individuals from diverse social backgrounds, filmed in their homes as they discuss objects they have arranged in their everyday surroundings. The interviews were conducted informally, without a prearranged questionnaire. The objects, selected at the beginning of each meeting, were then loaned by their owners for the duration of the exhibition, transitioning from the private sphere to the public space of the museum. In this installation, removed from their domestic context, they are arranged by the artist and presented in tandem with the video recordings. Ranging in age from 14 to 98, the participants in this project share a common trait: they cultivate unique, ritualistic relationships with their objects. The interviews delve into the different ways these relationships manifest – whether in the bonds that the objects establish among themselves, in the ways people connect with one another through the objects, or in their broader social functions as markers of identity and distinction. These portraits subtly reveal how individuals interact with the objects around them and what they seek to express through their selection, presentation, and juxtaposition.

• MACS, Hornu, Belgium
• Grand-Hornu, Rue Sainte-Louise 82, 7301 Boussu, Belgium
• 18 maggio – 2 novembre 2025

On the occasion of Talbot Rice Gallery’s 50th anniversary, a solo exhibition of Egyptian artist Wael Shawky is presented across the gallery’s contemporary and neoclassical spaces. The exhibition brings together two major film works by Shawky: the Cabaret Crusades series, which tells the story of the Crusades from an Arab perspective through Murano glass marionettes, and Drama 1882, an operatic work about the Urabi nationalist revolution and the events leading to the British occupation of Egypt. Both works reflect on the construction of history, questioning absolute truths and dominant narratives. Alongside the films, the exhibition features marionettes, glass sculptures, drawings, and objects selected by Shawky from the Islamic and Byzantine collections of the University of Edinburgh. The show celebrates Shawky’s work and honors the memory of historian David Talbot Rice, looking forward to the gallery’s future as a space for global dialogue between art and history. The exhibition is curated by Tessa Giblin and supported by Edinburgh College of Art, Creative Scotland, Henry Moore Foundation, The Alwaleed Centre, and presented in association with the Edinburgh International Festival.

• Talbot Rice Gallery, The University of Edinburgh
• University of Edinburgh, The University of, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, UK
• 28 giugno – 28 settembre 2025

The Ravello Foundation and Galleria Lia Rumma present Le Donne dell’Antichità by Anselm Kiefer at Villa Rufolo from 11 July to 26 August 2025, on the occasion of the Ravello Festival. The exhibition explores the female figure as a generative, destructive, or initiatory force, through characters from Roman history, Greek mythology, and Nordic traditions, portrayed as archetypal or symbolic presences in works made of materials such as lead, books, plaster, and photographs of ruins. The exhibition unfolds through the historic spaces and gardens of Villa Rufolo, in dialogue with its architecture and landscape.

• Villa Rufolo, Ravello
• Piazza Duomo 1, 84010 Ravello
• 11 luglio – 26 agosto 2025