Two exhibitions in Milan transform the home: from refuge to an uneasy, collective space

Two exhibitions, two distinct yet complementary visions of domestic space: Benni Bosetto and Rirkrit Tiravanija both explore the idea of home in their solo exhibitions currently on view in the Shed and the Navate of Pirelli HangarBicocca until the end of July.

"If art is the possibility of the impossible, a house must be as admirable as if it were empty and as intimate as if it were full. The perfect home is one that stops us in our tracks at the open doorway, intimidated by its human mystery and its architectural beauty. Entering someone else’s home for the first time is a bit like trespassing. When we are allowed to step inside, we enter on tiptoe, holding our breath, and thank our hosts for granting us entry".

With these words, in "Amate l’Architettura" – a small pamphlet published in 1957 that he himself described as “pocket-sized architecture” – Gio Ponti, recalls and comments on his essay dedicated to the “Italian-style home,” which appeared on the front page of the first issue of Domus in January 1928. Ponti’s reflection restores a wholly human depth to the home, beyond its formal aspects. To cross the threshold of a space inhabited by someone means entering into a relationship with the ideas of those who conceived it, and above all with those who live there.

From this perspective, dwelling is not merely the functional use of a space, but a relational condition that involves exposure and vulnerability. home The home is a place of identity, an intimate space that one may choose to open up to the gaze and presence of others.

The two exhibitions currently on view at Pirelli HangarBicocca both use the domestic setting as a narrative tool, identifying the home – and its constituent elements – as a means of constructing their own narrative, enriched by the relational dynamic that both artists evoke.

On the one hand, Benni Bosetto’s work – in the exhibition “Rebecca,” curated by Fiammetta Griccioli and on view in the intimate space of the Shed through July 19, 2026 – presents the house as an organic and imaginative environment, an almost initiatory space where body and architecture merge, inviting visitors to make a sinuous movement from the outside toward the inside. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s project, on the other hand – “The House That Jack Built,” curated by Lucia Aspesi and Vicente Todolí in the Navate space, through July 26, 2026 – enacts an opposite movement: it broadens the concept of dwelling, drawing on iconic examples of modernist architecture and incorporating them into a participatory, relational, and collective vision.

Stepping into these two exhibitions is, in a sense, akin to performing the gesture described by Gio Ponti: visitors are invited to cross a threshold, to temporarily inhabit these spaces, and to let themselves be drawn into the imaginative possibilities that both artists evoke.

At the entrance to the Shed—which changes shape depending on the exhibition it hosts, sometimes to the point of disappearing—Benni Bosetto, with his work “La Bocca” (2022), gives the space a biomorphic appearance: she covers it with silvery, iridescent scales, endowing it with a watchful eye and an opening that, just like a mouth, welcomes visitors to carry them inside a living, pulsating architectural body.

It is no coincidence that the spaces are identified by anatomical parts – “the cheek,” “the belly,” “the heart” – and that the largest work, “Le Cellule” (2026), appears as a skin-like element covering the walls, transforming them into an architectural skin inspired by the idea of the cell as a vital unit. A sort of wallpaper from which the artist’s bodily traces emerge – imprints, gestures, erotic references – along with plant motifs linked to fertility, resilience, and dreamlike worlds.

The echoes of Daphne du Maurier’s novel – from which the exhibition takes its title (and of the 1940 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock) – are loud and clear: here, the house functions as a narrative entity, alive and restless, permeated by memories and presences. Walls that seem to move, pieces of furniture scattered throughout the space whose stillness remains uncertain, a soft and ambiguous light: everything contributes to creating a temporal suspension in which the rooms become emotional spaces, permeated by desire, vulnerability, the unconscious, and the surreal, losing all pretense of functionality.

As is the case with the series “Le porte” (2026): nine doors arranged horizontally on the floor that, from architectural elements serving as passageways, are transformed into containers for characters, settings, and previous works, reassembled into a new configuration.

Bosetto’s sources of inspiration – literary, philosophical, and cinematic – are woven into a project that interprets the domestic interior as a political space: a place where one can suspend the demands of productivity, stretch out on a chaise longue, or devote oneself to tango – as in “Tango (II version)” (2026), the milonga staged in the “heart” – where dance is understood as a practice of mutual listening and presence, and of reclaiming a subjective rhythm, linked to dreams and rest.

In Rirkrit Tiravanija's exhibition, the theme of the house becomes more concrete and emerges from the very title, taken from the English limerick "This is the House that Jack Built," in which the dwelling becomes the focus of a potentially endless concatenation of actions and relationships.

This structure reflects the core of the artist’s practice: the creation of situations in which the artwork coincides with encounters between individuals and with the ways in which bodies interact with space. At a time when homes are becoming increasingly smaller and less designed for conviviality, the project presents itself as a relational model, in the sense described by Nicolas Bourriaud in “Relational Aesthetics” (1998): Tiravanija’s works “construct models of social participation designed to produce human relationships, just as architecture literally ‘produces’ the paths of those who occupy it. […] in these works, people learn anew what conviviality and sharing mean.”

The installation in the naves reflects this approach: Tiravanija creates a labyrinth of scaffolding tubes and orange fabric that connects the works and invites visitors to move actively through the space. Navigating it means constantly reevaluating one’s position in relation to others and to the path.

The playful element evokes Marcel Duchamp—“art is a game for all people of all ages”—and intertwines with the idea of architecture as a ready-made. Forms of dwelling become the subject of critical reinterpretation: Sigurd Lewerentz's Single Family House No. 47 (1930) is transformed into a children's house, freely furnished with Ikea furniture; the Kings Road House (1922) by Rudolf M. Schindler becomes a walkable structure in which to stand and watch videos made with other artists, dedicated to the relationships of everyday life.

Similarly, Philip Johnson Glass House (1949) opens up to playful activities, while Jean Prouvé s Maison Tropicale (1949) is inhabited by plants that evoke the colonial dynamics already present in the work of Marcel Broodthaers. A table designed by Prouvé, the 1953 Table Compas, expands to become a canopy under which to participate in an impossible puzzle.

There is also a reference to Le Corbusier and the Maison Dom-ino (1914), reinterpreted here as a space brought to life by the presence of board games, a TV for watching sports, and a foosball table. There is also a reference to a nomadic way of living, connected to the aspect of travel that is very present in the artist’s life, which emerges in the works featuring camping tents, used here as supports for the projection of videos and photographs.

Finally, in the bright space of the Cubo, which opens with an arch reminiscent of the geometry of Carlo Scarpa's Brion Tomb, Tiravanija recreates a portion of his own home in Chiang Mai, transforming it into a space that integrates works by other artists such as Martha Rosler, Shimabuku, and Jorge Pardo, along with scenes of daily life, also documented in a six-hour montage dedicated to the cat that lived in that house during the renovation – a cat that also lends its name to the entire work.

This combination of architecture, play, and interaction echoes his own life story: “finding the way home means going through the maze.” The house thus becomes a process, far removed from the idea of a closed, self-contained space. The structures installed in the Navate serve as spaces for passage and interaction, designed to be transformed by the presence of visitors.  

Living here is a form of temporary sharing, offering the chance to build communities – even if fleeting – based on the experience of being together.

Opening image: Rirkrit Tiravanija untitled 2009 (the house the cat built), 2026 Installation view, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2026 Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan Photo Agostino Osio