From 10 September to 18 October 2026, Palazzo Corvaja will host an exhibition on Corrado Cagli promoted by Babilonia.
From 10 September to 18 October 2026, the Palazzo Corvaja in Taormina will host Corrado Cagli: Nostoi. Rome New York Taormina, an exhibition dedicated to one of the most original and internationally significant figures of twentieth-century Italian art, profoundly connected to our city.
The exhibition is curated by Raffaele Bedarida, with artistic direction by Franco Baldasso, and is promoted by Babilonia Centro di Lingua e Cultura Italiana in collaboration with the Archivio Corrado Cagli of Rome, the Fondazione Taormina, the Municipality of Taormina, Bard College in New York, and the Sapienza University of Rome.
The opening is scheduled for Thursday, 10 September 2026, at 6:00 p.m..
The Exhibition
Nostoi arises from the renewed international interest in the work of Corrado Cagli (1910–1976), culminating in the exhibition curated by Raffaele Bedarida at the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) in New York in 2023, devoted to his trajectory between Rome and the United States, from exile through the war to his return to Italy in 1948. During the Second World War, Cagli enlisted in the United States Army, took part in the European campaign, and in New York shared the experience of European exiles, also collaborating with the emerging modern ballet scene as a set and costume designer. The New York exhibition centered on the theme of memory understood as a strategy of complexity and resistance to prevailing narratives, and concluded with his controversial return to Italy in 1948, when the artist refused to embrace the dominant redemptive rhetoric of the postwar reconstruction.
The Taormina exhibition expands on that trajectory by focusing on Cagli’s relationship with Sicily.
The Theme of Nostos
The title Nostoi recalls the Homeric theme of Ulysses’ homecoming, fundamental to Cagli yet also impossible: for the artist, it does not coincide with nostalgia for places of the past, but rather with a continual redefinition of his own identity. Rome, New York, and Taormina are the principal settings of his personal and artistic journey—geographical, cultural, and identity-forming alike: from Fascist and postwar Rome, to the New York of exile and rebirth, to the Taormina of the 1960s, an international crossroads for artists and intellectuals.
Cagli and Football, a Lesser-Known Passion
Among the lesser-known aspects of research on Cagli is his relationship with football, understood as a collective ritual and a form of bodily expression. In Sicily, he founded and financially supported the Robur di Letojanni and designed Palermo’s jersey. In Taormina, he moved with equal ease among intellectuals such as Giuseppe Ungaretti and Danilo Dolci and young footballers and champions such as José Altafini, leaving a memory that remains vivid in the city’s collective recollection.
The Exhibition Itinerary at Palazzo Corvaja
The choice of Palazzo Corvaja engages profoundly with the artist’s research: a building layered in history and architecture, it hosts an exhibition itinerary curated by architect Pietro Airoldi, which relates Cagli’s works to the spaces themselves—from the section devoted to muralism to the one addressing his relationship with Sicily, staged in the halls that once housed the first Sicilian Parliament.
An International Network of Artists and Intellectuals
One chapter of the exhibition is devoted to the international network of collaborations Cagli built with figures such as Charles Olson, Igor Stravinsky, Danilo Dolci, and George Balanchine. Works donated by friends and collaborators offer an unprecedented perspective on the community of intellectuals in exile in the United States and on the relationships the artist continued to cultivate between Rome and Taormina with figures such as Saul Steinberg, Eugene Berman, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Victor Brauner.
Casa Cuseni and Piccolo Processo
The exhibition also reconstructs the cosmopolitan character of postwar Taormina, with a focus on Casa Cuseni, the hub of the city’s cultural life and a meeting place for artists, activists, and advocates of civil liberties. Here Piccolo Processo finds its place, a work dedicated to the magistrate Giuseppe Navarra and inspired by the difficulties faced by the judiciary in combating the Mafia after the Viale Lazio massacre (1969): a testimony to the shared commitment of figures such as Danilo Dolci and Girolamo Li Causi in defense of legality and democracy.
Admission to the exhibition includes a visit to Casa Cuseni.
The Catalogue
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Dario Cimorelli Editore, with scholarly contributions by Franco Baldasso, Raffaele Bedarida, John Champagne, and Yasmin Riyahi. The volume examines Cagli’s relationship with Sicily, the dialogue his art maintains with writers, queer strategies and homoerotic iconography, his interest in football, sport, and popular culture, and is enriched by numerous previously unpublished images and documents.
Concept and coordination
Raffaele Bedarida teaches Contemporary Art History at the Sapienza University of Rome. He taught at Cooper Union in New York (2013–2024) and worked in the Adult Education and Academic Programs departments of MoMA and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2009–2016). He is the author, among other works, of Corrado Cagli: La pittura, l’esilio, l’America (2018) and Exhibiting Italian Art in the United States from Futurism to Arte Povera (2022). Internationally recognized as an expert on Cagli, he is currently collaborating with the Archivio Corrado Cagli in Rome on the artist’s general catalogue raisonné.
Franco Baldasso is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at Bard College in New York and a fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Together with Franca Sinopoli, he co-directs the summer school “The Cultural Heritage and Memory of Totalitarianism” at the Sapienza University of Rome. His monograph Against Redemption: Democracy, Memory and Literature in Post-Fascist Italy (2022) received the Helen and Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian History in the United States and was recently published in Italy by Marsilio under the title Verso quale redenzione. Democrazia, letteratura e memoria dopo il fascismo (2026).
The exhibition is promoted and organized by Babilonia Centro di Lingua e Cultura Italiana, under the organizational coordination of Elisa Aucello. Based in Taormina, Babilonia has for over thirty years been the center of excellence for the study of Italian language and culture in Sicily: accredited by the leading national and international institutions, including the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, the MIM, IALC, and Asils, the school bases its methodology on the communicative approach, integrating language learning with an in-depth immersion in Sicilian history, art, and traditions.
Practical Information
Venue Palazzo Corvaja, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II, 98039 Taormina (ME)
Dates 10 September – 18 October 2026
Hours Daily from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Admission permitted up to half an hour before closing.
Tickets
• Full price: €10.00
• Reduced: €5.00 (school groups, Taormina residents, children aged 6 to 18)
• Free admission: children up to age 5, accredited journalists, licensed tour guides, one companion per group of 10, persons with disabilities as recognized by law, state and political officials in an official capacity, guests of the Municipal Administration
Admission includes a visit to Casa Cuseni.
Guided tours By reservation.
Information Elisa Aucello, elisa.aucello@babilonia.it – Babilonia Office (8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.), +39 3483243549
A New Chapter for Babilonia
Through the theme of nostos, the exhibition recounts the story of an artist who lived through Fascism, exile, war, and rebirth, finding in Taormina a privileged vantage point from which to rethink his own history and artistic language.
With this initiative, Babilonia affirms its long-standing commitment to promoting culturally significant projects of international scope, capable of bringing together scholarly research, heritage enhancement, and engagement with the local territory, thereby helping to strengthen Taormina’s role as a meeting point between history, contemporary art, and international culture.
For Babilonia, this is the beginning of a biennial program of cultural events and marks the culmination of more than thirty years of cultural activity. Additionally this occasion marks the public presentation of MID (Mediterranean Innovation District): the new hub based in Taormina, designed for the local and global community. MID is an international ecosystem that integrates education, research, culture, artificial intelligence, and entrepreneurship, guiding individuals from knowledge to the concrete realization of ideas, projects and enterprises.
- Taormina: The Complete Guide to One of the Mediterranean’s Most Unique Destinations - 12 August 2026
- Corrado Cagli: Nostoi. Roma New York Taormina - 6 August 2026
- [GLOBUS MAGAZINE] Franco Baldasso e Raffaele Bedarida presentano: Cantieri Babilonia Letteratura, Arte e Memoria dopo il fascismo - 30 July 2026
