Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti presents VENUS, a major new exhibition by Joana Vasconcelos — VENUS, Valentino Garavani through the eyes of Joana Vasconcelos — opening at PM23, the cultural space envisioned by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti in the heart of Rome, in Piazza Mignanelli. The show was conceived as a dialogue between art, fashion and the city, free from rigid museological frameworks and firmly rooted in the present cultural landscape. Bringing together iconic works and new site-specific creations, the exhibition unfolds as a fluid journey where art and haute couture engage as contemporary languages in dialogue with the city. Renowned for her monumental and highly scenographic installations, Joana Vasconcelos develops at PM23 a fluid, non-linear exhibition journey that brings together emblematic works and new site-specific creations inspired by the universe of Valentino Garavani. 

Created through an ambitious participatory process involving over 200 contributors across Lisbon and Rome — including students, artisans and members of diverse communities — Valkyrie Venus is the pulsating heart of the exhibition. The work transforms the idea of the garment into sculpture and fashion into a visual and symbolic gesture. All this converges in a single, collective artistic gesture, a powerful symbol of the transmission of know-how and tradition, transformed into a vehicle for empowerment and emancipation, shared care, and individual and collective resistance: art as an agent of change, a tool for re-signification, education and solidarity.  

Extending beyond PM23, the exhibition resonates throughout the city via a constellation of public installations: I’ll Be Your Mirror at Piazza Mignanelli, Solitaire at Terrazza del Pincio,and Drag Race at the Ara Pacis, establishing an ongoing dialogue between contemporary art, architecture and the urban landscape. Tickets are availlable. 

Press Kit here.