Mediterranean Program
Baroque, Art Week, Southern Italy as an active centre of a new cultural geography.
Continue your art journey
Exhibiting in Lecce
Experience in a museum or historic palace during Art Week.
Lecce is the emerging heart of the Mediterranean: a meeting point between Europe, the South and contemporary languages in transformation. Here the project finds its origin, curatorial vision and organizational structure. Lecce does not replicate the models of European capitals: it reworks them from a different geographic and cultural position — slower, deeper, more stratified.
Lecce in the European program
Discover the programLecce, at the heart of the Mediterranean, is a living threshold between Europe and the global South, between baroque tradition and new forms of contemporary cultural production. Exhibiting in Lecce means entering an expanding context where Southern Italy is not the periphery but an active centre of a new cultural geography. Lecce and Puglia become strategic infrastructure of the European program.
Lecce is direct contact. Spaces have a strong architectural identity, often tied to baroque and to the city's historical dimension. The relationship with the public is close, human, continuous. In recent years it has become a connection point between Italian and international artists, with a growing and increasingly open scene.
How we work
The darte code of ethics
All exhibitions are scheduled for two weeks between January 2026 and December 2027. This application gives you the opportunity to be part of them.
The venues
MUST Museum
Via degli Ammirati, 11, 73100 Lecce, Italia
The MUST Museum of Lecce is housed in the ancient Monastery of Santa Chiara, a 15th-century monumental complex in the heart of the historic centre. Beyond its museum path dedicated to the city's history, MUST is today one of the main institutional spaces for contemporary art in Puglia, hosting exhibitions, installations, curatorial projects and cultural events of national and international importance.
Project Manager · Marine Butera
Palazzo del Seminario in Duomo
Piazza Duomo, 11, 73100 Lecce, Italia
Palazzo del Seminario, overlooking Lecce's scenographic Piazza Duomo, is one of the most important monumental complexes of Lecce baroque. Built between the late 17th and early 18th centuries by Giuseppe Cino, it is a place where architecture, history and cultural heritage coexist in perfect balance.
Project Manager · Adriana Orlandi
Palazzo Turrisi–Palumbo
Via Marco Basseo, 16, 73100 Lecce, Italia
Palazzo Turrisi-Palumbo is a historic residence in the centre of Lecce, dedicated to prestigious cultural events and contemporary art exhibitions. Its historic rooms offer a refined context for the dialogue between artistic research and Salento heritage.
Project Manager · Matteo Novembre
Venues in Lecce
What it means to exhibit in Mediterranean Program
- 01
Arrive
Mediterranean Program becomes part of your exhibition experience.
- 02
Install
Your work enters a physical and curatorial context.
- 03
Open
Meet artists, visitors and people from different countries.
- 04
Explore
Experience Mediterranean Program beyond the exhibition space.
- 05
Continue
The exhibition becomes another chapter of your darte profile and artistic trajectory.
How it works
A rolling application system, with no fixed deadlines. Every proposal is reviewed by darte's curatorial committee.
- 01Application
Apply at any time of the year with a short portfolio and a statement.
- 02Curatorial review
The curatorial committee assesses the research, its coherence and maturity.
- 03Context and city
Together we identify the exhibition context and the city that best fits your work.
- 04Exhibition production
We coordinate production, installation, critical texts, communication and press office.
- 05Positioning
The exhibition becomes a positioning device: relationships, collections, institutions.
What the exhibition includes
Exhibition space
Rooms in a historic palace, museum or partner gallery for the exhibition period.
Curatorial assistance
Selection of works, critical text and guidance throughout the project.
Installation
Exhibition design, mounting, lighting and captions.
Catalogue
Exhibition publication with the works on show and the curatorial texts.
Communication
Invitations, materials, press office and distribution on darte channels.
Reportage
Photographic coverage of the exhibition and opening, delivered to the artist.
Related cities
The whole program →
Venice
The Biennale, historic palaces and international dialogue: exhibiting in Venice means entering one of the world’s most important cultural currents.
Barcelona
Mediterranean scene, independent spaces, design.
London
Market, collecting, international context.
Paris
Museum tradition, galleries, contemporary research.
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City guides
All guides →
Where to Drink in Lecce: 5 Places We Recommend
Five addresses in Lecce’s historic centre for drinking well without having the same evening twice: cocktails in the street, wine, beer, a hidden speakeasy and a place where wine, food and mixology come together.
Discover Salento from Lecce: 5 Incredible Places in the Heart of the Mediterranean
From Lecce towards the Adriatic and Ionian seas: Otranto, Gallipoli, Porto Selvaggio, the Alimini Lakes and the Bauxite Quarry. Five places revealing just how much Salento can change in less than an hour on the road.
Where to Eat in Lecce: 5 Places We Recommend
Five addresses in central Lecce for discovering Salento cuisine through historic osterias, more contemporary tables, aperitivo and home-style flavours. Darte’s selection for deciding where to eat during your stay.
General Guide to Lecce
An essential guide to understanding Lecce from day one: Darte exhibition venues, where to stay, how to arrive and get around, what to know about the city and how to discover something of Salento during your stay.
Gil Zablodowsky: dove il suono diventa geometria
Per IMAGO al MUST di Lecce, Gil Zablodowsky porta l’astrazione digitale in dialogo con l’architettura, il suono e lo spazio fisico. In questa conversazione con DARTE, l’artista riflette sulla geometria come linguaggio visivo, sulla traduzione delle frequenze acustiche in immagini, sulla tensione tra precisione tecnologica e presenza umana e su ciò che accade quando l’arte digitale abbandona lo schermo per entrare nello spazio reale.
Régis Deparis: darte signed a retrospective between France and Puglia
Almost thirty works, more than forty years of painting and a story spanning France, Rome, Egypt and Salento. Darte brings Régis Deparis’s retrospective to Lecce, produced within Lecce Art Week and curated by Tancredi Hertzog-Guarini with Galerie T&L in Paris. Twelve years earlier, writing in La Règle du Jeu, Gilles Hertzog had called for a major retrospective of the artist and identified Lecce as one of the places where it should happen. The project turns that possibility into reality, bringing renewed attention to an original and difficult-to-classify figure in European painting of the second half of the twentieth century.
Giuseppe Gallace: painting what is missing
Domestic interiors, figures seemingly about to appear or disappear, suspended colours and details that interrupt the logic of a scene. Giuseppe Gallace creates paintings in which what is missing matters as much as what is represented. In 2025, Darte presented Fragmenta, his solo exhibition in the Sacristy of San Francesco della Scarpa in Lecce: eight oil paintings exploring a practice that does not tell complete stories, but leaves viewers to imagine what happened before and what might happen next.
Apply to the program
Select your preferred city or let the curatorial committee identify the context that best fits your work.
Darte in numbers
- 10+
- years of experience
- 7
- active cities
- 80+
- exhibitions produced
- 21
- signed partnerships