SAY WHO ITALY 2025: A cultural Constellation of Art, Fashion, and Visions
The 2025 of SAY WHO was not a linear journey. It was a constellation: points of light, sudden appearances, emotional peaks. More a best of than a diary, where art, fashion, cinema, and design took turns without asking permission—something that only truly successful years know how to do. A rhythm, rather than a chronology. And perhaps that’s exactly why, to tell its story, we chose 365 photographs, one for each day of the year: not to archive, but to keep the gaze alive. A visual calendar, more than a balance sheet.
There was the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, a reminder that contemporary art, when it’s serious, can also be fun. Florence played a high-level game with Palazzo Strozzi, capable of holding together—among others—Tracey Emin, Fra Angelico, and KAWS without losing a gram of authority. Milan answered with the telluric force of Nan Goldin at Pirelli HangarBicocca, while Fondazione Nicola Trussardi turned the occult into an urban experience with Fata Morgana.
Art kept occupying space—and doing it seriously. The Milan opening of Galleria Thaddaeus Ropac; the refined exhibitions at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection; the 24th International Exhibition at Triennale Milano, confirming the city as a global critical platform; and then Venice, with the event at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio, where the visionary projects Jean Nouvel imagined for the Paris spaces of the Fondation Cartier were presented. In Turin, the experimental spirit of OGR Torino entered into dialogue with the rigor of Castello di Rivoli. Bergamo opened its doors to the irreverent, city-wide solo exhibition Seasons by Maurizio Cattelan, curated by GAMeC. Rome hosted Wangechi Mutu at Galleria Borghese and celebrated the fifteen years of MAXXI as a generational reckoning.
Fashion, for its part, did what it does best: telling the present in grand style. The tribute to Giorgio Armani, who passed away this very year, the shows by Moschino, Paul Smith, Zegna, Tod’s, Furla, and Antonio Marras built a choral narrative, culminating at Teatro alla Scala with the CNMI Sustainable Fashion Awards, with Anna Wintour and Roberto Bolle in attendance. Fashion as a civic language, not just a matter of silhouettes.
And cinema? The high point was the Venice International Film Festival, once again a true map of global cinema. Not just red carpets, but visions, bodies, languages. Jim Jarmusch, Sofia Coppola, Tilda Swinton, Jude Law, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, and Italy’s own Pierfrancesco Favino told the story of a cinema that continues to question the present through films such as Dead Man’s Wire, Il maestro, In the Hand of Dante, Il mago del Cremlino, and The Smashing Machine.
Milan Design Week was overflowing, as always, but more aware. Between radical visions and diffuse design practices, with figures like Marta Sala—who reminded us that “you need to know the past, dialogue with the present, and keep an eye on the future”—and the events by Seletti and IKEA holding together pop culture and design thinking. The art fair miart acted as a counterpoint, engaging with the Museo del Novecento and the events marking the centenary of Robert Rauschenberg, suspended between history and contemporaneity.
And then the interviews—each different, each necessary. Stefano Accorsi reminding us that curiosity is an antidote; Urs Fischer declaring war on routine; Sara Drago, Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Thaddaeus Ropac, Constance Guisset, Carlo Capasa, and once again Maurizio Cattelan.
The best of SAY WHO 2025 is not a ranking. It’s a rhythm. And it’s what happens when looking—day after day, one photograph at a time—once again becomes a cultural act.
