October in Venice is the month of major international events: the Biennale Musica La Stella Dentro, featuring electronic music legends; the new exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim on Lucio Fontana’s ceramics; international artists’ photography with Venice Photo Lab; and the Venice Design Biennial, which opens the homes of starchitects in Venice.
Leading the October events with concerts, the inaugurations of new art galleries (read more), and three important Venetian Weeks—Venice Design Week, Venice Fashion Week, and Venice Cocktail Week—the program continues with unmissable international appointments in music, design, and creativity. Let us discover them together:
- 69th International Festival of Contemporary Music
Arsenale and Teatro alle Tese, October 11–25
Musical processions in the canals, vaporetto engines used as instruments, modular synths, and DJ sets: this is La Stella Dentro, the Biennale Musica 2025 curated by Caterina Barbieri. The program features electronic music stars such as Suzanne Ciani, William Basinski, and Carl Craig, drone metal pioneers Sunn O))), the Afrofuturist experimentations of Nkisi and Actress, and the hyperpop of Ecco2k.
It is a festival that sweeps away the boundaries between minimalism, techno, ambient, and early music, featuring world premieres, artistic residencies, and mentorships with Ellen Arkbro, DeForrest Brown Jr., and Lorenzo Senni for the five projects selected by Biennale College Musica from 235 applications across 35 countries.
- Venice Design Biennial
until November 2
The Venice Design Biennial has opened its fifth edition with the theme Extinction / Salvation, proposed by curators and founders Luca Berta and Francesca Giubilei. The project invites observers to view contemporary design through two opposing perspectives: extinction and salvation, presented in two distinct sections: Glass, in the spaces of an ancient Venetian apartment near the Accademia Bridge, and Collectible, hosted by SPUMA – Space for The Arts, featuring eight collateral projects throughout the city.
Exhibitions include: Aldo Chaparro at 193 Gallery with his first Venetian solo show; Architectural and Design Landscapes at Galerie Negropontes; Revival in Stillness with meditative performances at Spazio Ravà; and the 20th Century Masters tour dedicated to the private homes of Carlo Scarpa, Ettore Sottsass, and Valeriano Pastor.
- Mani-Fattura: The Ceramics of Lucio Fontana
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Dorsoduro 701
From October 11 to March 2, 2026
The first exhibition in an Italian museum to explore the prolific body of ceramic works by Lucio Fontana (1899–1968). Curated by Sharon Hecker, art historian and independent curator, the exhibition is an exceptional testament to the scope of the artist’s imagination and creativity as a sculptor.
Featuring approximately seventy works from national and international museums and private collections, including works never before exhibited to the public, the exhibition path covers a wide range of subjects: human figures, animals, harlequins, warriors, and abstract forms. Also on display are photographic records of Fontana at work, revealing the importance of the artist’s hand in the creative process.
- Venice Photo Lab
October 10–24
Inauguration Saturday, October 11, from 4 PM to 6 PM at San Teodoro
Free admission, hours 10:30 AM–6:00 PM
Eighty-six international photographers and artists explore the theme Life in the seventh edition of Venice Photo Lab. Five different venues in Venice: Stefano Lotumolo exhibits at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni, Ann-Christine Woehrl at Palazzo Contarini Polignac (on view until October 21), and Mark Fearnley and Nina Papiorek at 193 Gallery.
Other artists are featured in the Arte Spazio Tempo gallery, the halls of the Scuola Grande Confraternita di San Teodoro, the windows of artisan workshops, and Majer Venezia retail points.
The exhibition, organized by LAB 77 APS, brings together works that recount multiple interpretations of contemporary living. “The work of a collective creates a kaleidoscope of perspectives, multiplying interpretations of reality,” as explained by curator Fabio Cavessago.
- Eye2Eye
From October 11 to November 23
Stanze della Fotografia on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Andrea Francolini brings over eighty images to Italy for the first time, recounting ten years of work through three sections: Eyedentify, dedicated to Sydney’s transgender community; Truck Art, on the Pakistani tradition of decorated trucks; and My First School, regarding the children of the non-profit organization of the same name founded by the Milanese photographer in 2011 to improve educational conditions in northern Pakistan.
With twenty-five years of experience and over two hundred international magazine covers, Francolini builds each portrait on direct eye contact. The works explore vulnerability, dignity, and the silent strength of humanity, transcending cultural and aesthetic barriers.
The exhibition, curated by Denis Curti, runs alongside the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition, which is open until January 6, 2026.
- Venice Hospitality Challenge
Saturday, October 18, from 1:30 PM
Maxi yachts compete in the St. Mark’s Basin for the twelfth edition of the Venice Hospitality Challenge, the only regatta in the world held entirely within a city’s inland waters. The event, conceived by Mirko Sguario, president of the Yacht Club Venezia, brings together Venetian five-star hotels and internationally renowned skippers in a circuit that touches San Marco, the Zattere, and the Giudecca Canal.
The start at 1:30 PM is announced by the water jets of the Panfido tugboats. The vessels, divided into two categories by the Regatta Committee, depart two minutes apart and compete along a course that reaches the Lido from St. Mark’s Basin with a buoy turn between the Lido and Sant’Elena, before returning to the front of the Giudecca with another buoy turn and continuing to the finish line. The public can follow the entire regatta from the shores and admire the boats moored at the floating pier in the Giudecca Canal.
Awards ceremony at 5:30 PM at the VYP quay at the Zattere, featuring the Doge’s hat in Murano glass created by the Simone Cenedese glassworks and the Barcolana Venice Hospitality Trophy for the best-placed boat between the Venice Hospitality Challenge and Barcolana Maxi.
This year, the event is part of the ICOMIA 2025 program, the world meeting of marinas held in Venice from October 15 to 17.
October at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, San Giorgio Maggiore Island
- Transcendence in the Small Gestures of Life: Attention and Care for Nature and Humans in Religious Traditions
Symposium – October 2 and 3, starting at 9:30 AM and held in English
To register: eventbrite.it
The symposium explores how the spiritual practices of different religious traditions awaken care for the natural world, human beings, and creation through daily gestures that connect to the transcendent dimension. Sufi Sama ceremonies, the ritual use of perfume in funeral rites, and the care dedicated to plants and animals become concrete examples of how spirituality manifests in actions that are seemingly minimal yet deeply meaningful.
The initiative is organized by the Center for Comparative Studies of Civilizations and Spiritualities of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, together with the Muslim Worlds Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists and the “Francesca Cappelletto” Center for Ethnographic Research and Applied Anthropology of the Department of Human Sciences at the University of Verona.
- Casanova and Venice at Palazzo Cini
San Vio from September 27 to March 2, 2026
Open daily (except Tuesdays) from 10 AM to 6 PM (last entry 5:15 PM)
The exhibition will be closed on December 25 and 26 and January 1, 2026
Free admission on November 21 for the feast of Madonna della Salute - Casanova and Europe. An Opera in Several Acts
San Giorgio Maggiore Island, from October 17, 2025, to March 2, 2026
Open daily from 10 AM to 6 PM, closed on Wednesdays. The exhibition will be closed on December 25 and 26 and January 1, 2026
Admission is free
The Fondazione Giorgio Cini celebrates the 300th anniversary of Giacomo Casanova’s birth with an exhibition project that restores Casanova’s many faces through documents, works, and testimonies that recount an era of profound transformation: from the twilight of the Ancien Régime to the Napoleonic period, and the advent of the industrial and liberal revolution of the 19th century.
Venice was one of the cultural hubs of the European continent when Casanova set out on his travels, while the Republic was experiencing the final stages of its existence.
Created in collaboration with the Fondazione Teatro La Fenice for the staging, the project presents materials preserved and studied by the Institutes of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and reconstructs the vitality of the European cultural landscape, the intensity of intellectual exchanges, and the richness of perspectives that characterized that historical period through the figure of the famous Venetian.
Cover: Suzanne Ciani live at Terraforma (June 2017) ph. Michela Di Savino.
