On the occasion of Arte Fiera Bologna 2026, the city once again confirms itself as one of the most important international crossroads for modern and contemporary art. It is within this context of intense cultural, curatorial, and collecting activity that a highly significant exhibition takes shape—one that engages in dialogue with the history of photography and the global visual imagination.
Within the monumental spaces of Palazzo Vassé Pietramellara, located in Galleria Cavour in the section belonging to Gioia Martini, a major exhibition is presented dedicated to Marco Glaviano, an internationally renowned Italian photographer and a leading figure in fashion and glamour photography between the 20th and 21st centuries.
Tickets to access the exhibition and experience the show live will also be available for purchase online via TicketOne.
Buy tickets
The project is curated by Deodato Arte, which oversees its development and operational organization, and represents a significant opportunity to experience firsthand the work of Marco Glaviano, an artist represented by the gallery, through a broad and immersive exhibition journey.
Beyond the icon: photography as a visual event
The exhibition is not a simple celebratory retrospective, but a true epochal narrative of photography. Through nearly 100 works, the exhibition retraces the cultural climate of a period in which major photographers permanently redefined the visual codes of fashion, the body, and the gaze.
Glaviano’s images—featuring iconic figures such as Cindy Crawford, Eva Herzigová, Paulina Porizkova, Claudia Schiffer, and more contemporary personalities like Eleonora Abbagnato—go beyond the fame of their subjects. The icon is a means, not an end. What truly emerges is the quality of the encounter between photographer and subject: the ability to transform a person into a visual event, where the body becomes architecture, relief, and landscape.
In this process, the female body moves beyond a reduction to mere aesthetic surface and returns as conscious presence, identity, and character. Fashion ceases to be ornament and becomes gesture, action, performance.
Rigour, beauty, presence
Marco Glaviano’s contribution to contemporary photography lies in his ability to combine formal rigour with emotional intensity. His images do not simply represent—they construct a presence. It is within this balance between control and naturalness that a vision emerges, one that has profoundly influenced the collective visual imagination.
This critical perspective is further enriched by the curatorial text by Alessia Glaviano, Head of Global PhotoVogue and Director of the PhotoVogue Festival, who accompanies the exhibition with an in-depth reflection on beauty as discipline, responsibility, and constant attention to the world and human relationships.
As Marco Glaviano writes:
“Beauty is not an accessory value. It is a discipline. A constant attention to the world, to people, to relationships.”
The dialogue with Helmut Newton and the memory of photography
A central section of the exhibition is dedicated to the dialogue between Marco Glaviano and Helmut Newton, an encounter that began in Milan in 1968 and evolved over time into a confrontation between two radical and complementary visions of image and body.
It is no coincidence that the exhibition takes place twenty-five years after the only exhibition ever held in Bologna by Helmut Newton, in 2000. The show includes original materials from that historic moment, including the monumental volume SUMO published by Taschen, archival editorial materials, audiovisual content, and an unpublished photographic portrait of Marco Glaviano by Newton, bearing witness to a friendship that marked the history of fashion and authorial photography.
Polaroids, darkroom, and analogue experience
Alongside the large-format works, the exhibition includes a significant nucleus of 54 Polaroids, a true visual laboratory and personal diary of the artist. Immediate and instinctive shots that reveal the image before it becomes an icon and expose the creative process in its most authentic form.
The exhibition is further enriched by a strong experiential and educational dimension: a cinema room with original archival videos, a functioning darkroom, and the opportunity for visitors to experience analogue photographic printing on traditional photographic paper. An invitation to slow down the gaze and rediscover the value of time, craftsmanship, and image quality.
A space that becomes a narrative
Within the rooms of Palazzo Vassé, the environment itself becomes an integral part of the project. The intervention by O2 Farm introduces greenery as a cultural and design device rather than a decorative element, creating connections between architecture, body, and images, and guiding visitors through a more conscious and critical experience.
The project, supported by the Italian Ministry of Education and Merit and developed with the involvement of major Bologna-based educational institutions, confirms Galleria Cavour as a place of cultural experimentation and international dialogue, capable of redefining the concept of luxury as an opportunity for human and cultural growth.
Buy tickets now on TicketOne to experience live the Fashion Portraits exhibition dedicated to Marco Glaviano.
Buy tickets
Useful information
4 February – 4 April
Palazzo Vassé | Via Farini, 14 – Bologna
Special openings
Art City: 5 – 6 – 8 February | 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
Art City White Night: 7 February | 10:00 am – 12:00 am
Regular opening hours from 10 February
Monday: closed
Tuesday to Saturday: 10:00 am – 1:00 pm | 3:30 pm – 7:30 pm (last entry 7:00 pm) Sunday: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm | 3:00 pm – 6:00 pm (last entry 5:30 pm)