MIA Photo Fair 2025

MIA Fair, conceived in 2011, is the most important art fair dedicated to photography in Italy.

Overview

MIA Fair offers a unique approach by presenting Solo Show and Group Show with a specific curatorial project. The fair was created with the aim of highlighting the transverse role that photography has come to play between the languages of expression of the contemporary art system.

MIA Fair provides a rich cultural program, with events and conferences dedicated to the world of art and photography, which aims to support conscious collectors with insights and important guests in the Italian and international art scene. The event offers the possibility to art collectors to enjoy a lively and innovative art event, experiencing a unique view in Italy on the photography art market, ranging from established to emerging artists. MIA Fair has achieved the result of creating a new collectors’ base which approaches contemporary art through the collection of photography.

Among the highlights, the exhibition Portofino Residencies 2021-2024 reunites works by Alejandro Chaskielberg, Piergiorgio Sorgetti, Martina Giammaria and Carolina Pimenta, shaping a narrative that ranges from social commentary to dreamlike visions, from landscape re-elaborations to the analysis of a collective memory. A collaboration between PhMuseum and Portofino Dry Gin, which each year the Portofino Residency brings a visual artist to Portofino, inviting them to explore and interpret the Italian Riviera after their own research. The journey began in 2021 with Argentine photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg, who immersed himself in the expressive magic of a nocturnal Portofino. In 2022, Italian Piergiorgio Sorgetti captured the vibrancy and freshness of the Ligurian summer with Summer Glow. In 2023, Martina Giammaria's Dream of a Blue Garden transformed the village into a surreal universe, a dream within a dream, articulated between dancers immersed in the landscape and suggestions given by artificial intelligence. In 2024, the project evolved into an international open call. Photographer Carolina Pimenta, a Portuguese artist active between Mexico City and Lisbon, was selected to narrate the complexity of Portofino through High Seas, High Hopes. The project explored the contrasts between luxury and authenticity, tourism and local life, deconstructing the iconic image of the village and offering a reflection on the myth of the contemporary Mediterranean.

The Main Section of the 14th edition of MIA Photo Fair delves into the theme of Dialogues. It embraces the conversations between artists and the public, diverse cultures, historical and contemporary photography, as well as interactions with other conventional art forms and new technologies. Dialogue becomes a crucial bridge for fostering mutual understanding, artistic innovation, and exploration. Through Dialogues, visitors and collectors will gain valuable insights while artists are inspired to explore new interpretations and exhibit unique projects. This theme opens a space for free reflection on how the world is seen and represented through images. Dialogues highlights a more refined communication between all those who view MIA Photo Fair as a powerful platform for artistic and institutional exchange.

Curated by Domenico de Chirico, Beyond Photography - Dialogue, is now in its sixth edition and continues its mission towards the most fertile territories of freedom of expression, unparalleled universality and the extraordinariness of the noblest encounters, thus offering a new way – vivid and heterogeneous – of exploring new ideas and also encouraging critical reflection. By drawing attention to the importance of dialogue and reciprocity and striving for a more inclusive, innovative and polarisation-free idea of universal sentiment, Beyond Photography - Dialogue intends to further stimulate exchanges and sharing, which are fundamental for individual development, social cohesion and collective advancement.

Curated by Emanuela Mazzonis Di Pralafera, The Reportage Beyond Reportage section presented for the third time on the occasion of the fourteenth edition of MIA Photo Fair invites the viewer to take a visual journey through the images of photographers of diverse generations and nationalities, coming from different continents and some of them presented in Milan for the first time. The section highlights how it is increasingly difficult to talk about classic reportage as ‘exclusive’ photography. Photographers, in the era of post-photography, go beyond traditionally reportage and work instead in the field of documentary photography, telling private or collective stories that go beyond the banal, the everyday, the “already seen” in order to ask questions and not give answers.

In addition, the Focus section, curated by Rischa Paterlini, will spotlight Switzerland, continuing the fair’s tradition of highlighting a foreign country, as previously done with Iran and the Mediterranean. Aligned with the fair’s theme, Dialogues, this section aims to connect Swiss galleries and artists with international figures, exploring how the Swiss cultural context influences and inspires contemporary photographic practices. The primary objective is to foster a dialogue between global and local perspectives, allowing visitors to gain insight into the Swiss art scene from within while also understanding how it is perceived and interpreted by artists and galleries beyond its borders. This approach seeks to enrich the fair experience, offering visitors new reflections on Switzerland’s emergence as a key player in contemporary photography and deepening their understanding of the country as a crossroads of artistic cultures.

Plus, in the Publishing section, visitors can explore the world of photography with publishers, magazines, and specialized publications for a complete immersion into the visual universe of fine art photography.