This autumn, Rome gains a compelling new destination for art and fashion lovers. “Aura,” the exhibition pairing the work of Polish painter Ewa Juszkiewicz with fashion designer Valentino Garavani, opens on October 18, 2026 and runs through February 21, 2027 at PM23 — Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti, located at Piazza Mignanelli 23, in the heart of the Eternal City.
At the core of “Aura” lies a single, powerful concept: metamorphosis. The exhibition explores transformation not merely as a visual motif, but as the conceptual structure binding together two distinct creative practices — one rooted in painting, the other in haute couture. The title itself hints at the intangible quality that connects an artwork to its history, a garment to its wearer, and a face to its representation.
Juszkiewicz has built her distinctive visual language through a sustained confrontation with the history of female portraiture. Drawing on works and subjects from the European painterly tradition, she subverts its established conventions, modifying or concealing the faces of her sitters through fabrics, hair, flowers, leaves, and other organic forms. The result is a body of work that is at once reverent and radical — honoring the old masters while quietly dismantling their gaze. Garavani’s creations, meanwhile, have always understood clothing as something more than garment: as volume, sculpture, and second skin. It is precisely in this shared sensibility that the dialogue between the two finds its natural ground.
“Aura” brings together twenty-seven paintings by Juszkiewicz — including a new work created especially for the occasion — and thirty-seven dresses selected from the Maison Valentino archives. Rather than a side-by-side display, the paintings and garments enter into an active dialogue, resonating through correspondences of fabric, volume, color, and detail. Visitors will find themselves moving between painting and haute couture, tradition and invention, celebration and critical reinterpretation. Throughout, the exhibition presents the female figure not as a fixed image, but as a form continually reshaped by history, material, nature, and imagination.
The choice of venue is equally meaningful. PM23, the Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti’s space at Piazza Mignanelli 23, sits just steps away from the Spanish Steps and the historic heart of the Maison, making the exhibition a natural extension of Valentino’s Roman identity.
Practical information: the exhibition runs from October 18, 2026 to February 21, 2027, with opening hours from 11:00 AM to 6:30 PM (last entry at 6:00 PM). It is closed on Mondays, with the exception of Monday, October 19, 2026, which remains open. Additional closures fall on December 24 and 25, 2026, December 31, 2026, and January 1, 2027. Details and tickets are available at piazzamignanelli23.com.
For anyone in Rome this winter — or planning a visit — “Aura” promises to be one of the season’s most refined encounters between art and fashion, staged in an intimate setting where paint and fabric speak the same language.
On the cover: Ewa Juszkiewicz, Untitled (after Jan Adam Kruseman), 2020 © Ewa Juszkiewicz
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