INFINITIES COMMISSION: nora chipaumire: gadzi

3 june- 23 august

nora chipaumire 2016 © Boyle

Tate Modern today unveils gadzi, an original installation by nora chipaumire, the recipient of the Infinities Commission 2026, a free to attend annual commission showcasing the limitless experimentation of contemporary art. Drawing on the legends, stones, and soil of her native Zimbabwe, multi-award-winning international artist nora chipaumire, has created an immersive, multi-sensory environment that brings together sculpture, sound, and moving image. Rooted in the legends of the Shona people, gadzi takes its name from gadziguru, the oldest and most powerful female presence, a generative force tied to land, ancestry, and creation.

Born in 1965 in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, chipaumire makes work and creates ideas that straddle multiple imaginaries: African, black, woman. Her artistic practice ranges from opera, dance, installation and film, channeling a punk resistance to each medium. The artist has transformed Tate Modern’s iconic East Tank into a sculptural and sonic environment that echoes the ancient landscapes of Zimbabwe. Defined by granite outcrops, red soil, and vast skies, the work takes shape as a ‘living and breathing organism’, constructed by hand and evoking a sense of enduring, haunted resilience. “There’s no answer to what I’m doing,” chipaumire reflects. “It’s a gesture I’m offering, a gesture to save the energy of the landscape, to move this energy, and to protect it.”

nora chipaumire, NEHANDA 2021 © Alla Kovgan @ Mko Malkhasya

The installation creates space for performance and features a custom-built dub sound system embedded within sculptural elements, activating the space through vibration as much as sound. Sound and movement are both integral to chipaumire’s practice, and for gadzi she draws on influences from dub and its punk subcultures, as well as Chimurenga music, all of which are associated with revolution and resistance. Drawing connections between the low-frequency sonic force of dub, which has African roots, and the geological and spiritual presence of stone, the work imagines how, in Zimbabwe, “God was heard through the rocks.” gadzi invites audiences to engage physically: to move through the structures, peer into their depths, sit on the speakers, and feel sound resonate through their bodies. Accompanying film elements introduce shifting light and visions of feminine presence within nature, extending the work’s exploration of land, spirit, and perception.

On select dates in June, gadzi will be activated by live performances in which chipaumire is joined by 14 performers and artists to lead a procession of movement and sound through the gallery, blending a confluence of guitars, saxophone and electronic sounds with traditional instruments of the Shona people: hoshos, mbiras and ngomas. A special edition of Tate Modern’s monthly Lates on Friday 26 June will also take inspiration from the Commission, bringing the gallery to life with a free programme of music, conversation, film and workshops, in collaboration with chipaumire. The artist’s mountainous speaker installation – designed conjointly with Ari Marcopoulos and Kara Walker and constructed by Matt Jackson Studio – will arrive in the Turbine Hall, celebrating the legacy of sound systems.

Launched in 2025 and with funding confirmed for the next decade, the Infinities Commission presents a long-term commitment to platforming international artists at the forefront of contemporary art, empowering them to realise ambitious, future-facing projects at pivotal moments in their careers. Each year, an expert panel is asked to select an innovative and boundary-breaking international artist to create a visionary new work for the Tanks, Tate Modern’s unique spaces dedicated to performance, installation and time-based art. For 2026, the selection panel included artist and academic Tony Cokes, curator Elvira Dyangani Ose, critic and writer Nora Khan and researcher and curator Daniel Blanga Gubbay. In addition to selecting the commissioned artist, the panel are also invited to choose three artists or collectives to receive a grant of £10,000 to fund research and development in their respective practices. This year’s bursary recipients are: collective Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), duo Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, and Sahej Rahal.

Informations Infinities Commission: nora chipaumire: gadzi

3 June – 23 August 2026

Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG

Open daily 10.00–18.00, and until 21.00 every Friday and Saturday

Admission free

More information at tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern

Il primo Picasso di Milano

Un Moschettiere tra rivoluzione, antifranchismo e solidarietà internazionale

3 june- 27 september 2026

curated by Roberto Pini

Pablo Picasso (Málaga, 1881 – Mougins, 1973), Homme assis (Le Fumeur), 1967. Oil on canvas. Acquired in 1972. © Succession Picasso. Photo: Studio Marco Bertoli.

From 3 June 2026, the Museo del Novecento presents The First Picasso in Milan. A Musketeer Between Revolution, Anti-Francoism and International Solidarity, a focus exhibition curated by Roberto Pini and dedicated to the complex history of Homme assis, the first painting by Pablo Picasso to enter Milan’s civic collections in 1972.

Installed on the museum’s ground floor, the exhibition offers a historical and critical reinterpretation of Homme assis, tracing its international journey between 1967 and 1972 while exploring the relationship between art, political engagement and cultural institutions in the second half of the twentieth century.

“This small yet precious exhibition exemplifies the research, study and enhancement work that our museums carry out every day on the city’s cultural heritage,” says Tommaso Sacchi, Councillor for Culture of the City of Milan.

“Through the story of the first Picasso to enter Milan’s civic collections, the Museo del Novecento returns to the public not only the history of an extraordinary artwork, but also the role of Milan as an open, democratic city deeply connected to the values of culture and international solidarity.”

Ainasi, Pillitteri, Palazzo Reale 1972

Created in 1967, Homme assis belongs to the Musketeers series, one of the most significant groups of works from Pablo Picasso’s late production. Traditionally interpreted by critics as an imaginary and autobiographical projection of the artist, the painting is reconsidered here in light of the different contexts that shaped its reception and public circulation between the late 1960s and early 1970s, a period marked by intense civic, cultural and political activism.

Before arriving in Milan in 1972, Homme assis was exhibited in major international contexts, from the Salon de Mai in Paris to the Salón de Mayo in Havana, where it was sent by Pablo Picasso himself as a symbol of his political commitment.

In March 1972, Milan hosted the major exhibition Amnistia. Que trata de España in the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale. Promoted by CGIL, CISL and UIL, the exhibition aimed to support Spanish workers and advocate for amnesty for political prisoners under the Franco regime.

The initiative became one of the most significant moments of civic and cultural mobilisation of the period, bringing together works by some of the leading figures of the international art scene, including Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Antoni Tàpies, Franco Angeli, Renato Guttuso, Carlo Levi, Emilio Vedova, Giulio Turcato and Toti Scialoja.

Among all the works on display, Homme assis by Picasso was the only one acquired by the City of Milan, at the request of Mayor Aldo Aniasi. Beyond enriching the city's public collections, this acquisition represented a concrete affirmation of Milan’s commitment to international solidarity and anti-Francoist values.

Museo del Novecento, installation view of The First Picasso in Milan. A Musketeer Between Revolution, Anti-Francoism and International Solidarity, 2026. Photo: Studio Marco Bertoli_14

Through photographs, archival documents and audiovisual materials, The First Picasso in Milan reconstructs the public history of Homme assis, tracing its international circulation between Paris, Havana and Milan, while exploring the cultural and political context that shaped its reception.

The exhibition project stems from the important work of surveying, studying and cataloguing the heritage of the Museo del Novecento, begun several years ago, which in 2026 will lead to the online publication of the collection catalogue.

This research has made it possible to rediscover significant works from the city’s civic heritage and to reconstruct their historical, conservation and exhibition histories, bringing often-forgotten connections back to light and highlighting the museum’s role as a centre for research into the artistic and cultural history of the twentieth century.

More than fifty years after its entry into the civic collections, the Museo del Novecento therefore offers a new reading of the historical and collecting value of a work that goes beyond the strictly artistic dimension, intertwining with processes of collective memory and Milan’s civic identity.

L’INCANTO

Opening saturday 4 june 6.30PM

5 june- 18 june 2026

curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi

L'Ignoto Sconosciuto Altrove, John Cascone, Veronica Cruciani, still da video, 2026 artists courtesy

Project promoted by the Department of Culture of Rome Capital, Azienda Speciale Palaexpo, and Fondazione Mattatoio – Città delle Arti.

From Friday, June 5, 2026, the spaces of Teatro 1 – La Pelanda at the Mattatoio in Rome will host L’Incanto, an exhibition project by John Cascone and Veronica Cruciani, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi. The exhibition is conceived as an immersive experience in which environmental installation and video come together to create a single perceptual field. L’Incanto will be open to the public until June 18, 2026.

At the core of the exhibition lies the idea of enchantment, understood not simply as an aesthetic emotion, but as a perceptual and cognitive event: the moment when reality reveals a possibility that language has not yet organized. The exhibition unfolds through the environmental installation Il Respiro (The Breath) and the video work L’Ignoto Sconosciuto Altrove (The Unknown Unknown Elsewhere). Through Il Respiro, Teatro 1 is transformed into a traversable environment composed of trees, lights, sounds, and camping tents, evoking the atmosphere of an undergrowth forest and inviting visitors to engage with a different intensity of perception. Within this landscape, the projection of L’Ignoto Sconosciuto Altrove takes shape, structured in four chapters and emerging from a long research process developed across diverse urban and natural contexts.

L'Ignoto Sconosciuto Altrove, John Cascone, Veronica Cruciani, still da video, 2026 artists courtesy

L’Incanto does not follow a linear narrative logic; rather, it establishes a continuous relationship between the experience of space and the moving image. The environmental installation is not merely a backdrop, but guides visitors into a dimension of heightened attention and listening; the video, in turn, reorganizes and reactivates this experience. In this way, L’Incanto creates an ongoing interplay between perception, memory, and imagination, never settling into a single, fixed meaning. Within this process, nature assumes a decisive role—a presence capable of disorienting and expanding the field of experience. It is precisely within this suspension that it becomes possible to imagine other forms of relationship with the living world, and other ways of seeing and inhabiting it.

Born from four years of workshops, dialogues, and site-specific practices, the project brings together a shared investigation into the limits of the imaginable and the conditions of vision. Through the collaboration between John Cascone and Veronica Cruciani, L’Incanto takes shape as a unified device in which space, sound, image, and language intertwine to create an experience that does not simply represent the unknown, but makes it perceptible.

Throughout the exhibition period, the video will be screened daily at three scheduled times: 4:30 PM, 5:30 PM, and 6:30 PM. On the occasion of the exhibition’s finissage, on June 18, 2026, the exhibition catalogue—designed by DITO Studio—will also be presented as a further editorial reflection on the research and journey developed through L’Incanto.

John Cascone is a visual and sound artist working across performance, video, installation, and participatory practices. His research explores the relationships between space, fiction, and language. His projects have been presented at institutions including the MAXXI, Palazzo Esposizioni, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Segal Center, and Kauno Paveikslų Galerija. As a sound dramaturg, he has collaborated on numerous productions directed by Veronica Cruciani, including Accabadora (based on the novel by Michela Murgia), The Maids (Le Serve), and Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.

Veronica Cruciani is a theatre director active in some of Italy’s leading theatrical institutions, including Teatro di Roma, Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Teatro di Napoli, Teatro Nazionale di Genova, and Teatro Stabile del Veneto. From 2016 to 2019, she served as Artistic Director of Teatro Biblioteca Quarticciolo. In subsequent years, she received both the Premio Hystrio alla Regia and the Premio della Critica ANCT. Her work moves between dramatic theatre and contemporary research, developing an authorial approach that reinterprets classical texts while embracing contemporary dramaturgy as a tool for investigating the present. Since 2015, she has collaborated with visual and sound artist John Cascone on a range of performative and installation-based projects.

Information

L’INCANTO

John Cascone and Veronica Cruciani

curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi

June 5–18, 2026

Mattatoio di Roma, Teatro 1 – La Pelanda

Piazza Orazio Giustiniani 4 – Rome

Free admission

Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 4:30 PM – 7:30 PMClosed on Mondays

Video screening: three daily activations at 4:30 PM, 5:30 PM, and 6:30 PM.