The charm of Milan lights up at Christmas, while the moon lights up the spiers of the Duomo, the Navigli, the Ambrosiana Library, revealing the never-before-seen details of the Last Supper by Leonardo.
While Alberto Angela puts a new episode of “Stanotte a…” under the tree for art lovers, the successful series that began in May 2015, making an appointment for viewers in the city of the Madonnina, the week of Christmas shows off interesting guests on the small screen, from an unpublished Anish Kapoor, at the center of an intimate portrait that breaches his character and his art like never before, to the master of photography Tina Modotti.
Here are some art appointments not to be missed during the Christmas week.

Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, circa 1494 -1497, plaster, oil tempera paint, 880 x 460 cm, Milan, Museo del Cenacolo Vinciano

On Rai 1 walking around Milan with Alberto Angela
On 25 December at 21.25 a walk in the company of Alberto Angela among the beauties of Milan will guide the public from home among the secrets of the city’s most prestigious cultural institutions, from the Duomo to S. Ambrogio, from Brera to the Ambrosiana, from the Teatro alla Scala at the Castello Sforzesco. Spectators will also find the Meazza Stadium, the Central Station, the Galleria and the Navigli canals among the most representative places of Milanese life. The most contemporary Milan of skyscrapers and Archistars takes shape through the story of Giancarlo Giannini and some of the most illustrious exponents of Milanese life.
Tonight in Milanthe program by Alberto Angela written with Fabio Buttarelli, Filippo Arriva, Ilaria Degano, Vito Lamberti, Aldo Piro, Emilio Quinto, produced by Nicoletta Zavattini and directed by Gabriele Cipollitti, is available in 4K on channel 210 and on the free satellite platform Tivùsat .

On Art Night Tina Modotti, photography teacher
The second episode of the new season of Art Night – the program by Silvia De Felice and Emanuela Avallone, Massimo Favia, Alessandro Rossi, directed by Andrea Montemaggiori, broadcast now on Wednesdays – accompanies the public from home into the realm of photography.
“Every time the words ‘art’ or ‘artist’ are used, I get an unpleasant sensation due to the misuse of these terms. I consider myself a photographer, and nothing else”. Thus wrote in 1912 Tina Modotti, protagonist, Wednesday 21 December at 21.15 on Rai 5 of the documentary Tina Modotti. Photography master. Written by Clarissa Montilla, Alessio Guerrini, Dario Marani, directed by Dario Marani, the documentary, produced by Fish Eye in collaboration with Rai Cultura, delves into the universe of the photographer and activist born in Udine in 1896 and died under circumstances ” unclear” in Mexico City. We will follow Tina – she emigrated to California in her early childhood, with her family, at a young age – to Mexico, where she will stay with her partner, the photographer Edward Weston. A very strong bond between Modotti and Mexico, a country that the photographer will elect as her new homeland. To tell Modotti – among the few women of the early twentieth century to be appreciated for an activity in which until then, only men had been considered – will be Marì Domini, president of the Tina Modotti Committee, the photographer Gianni Pignat, the curator Biba Giachetti, and again Simona Filippini, Roberta Valtorta, Gianpaolo Gri, Claudio Natoli, Micropixel.

Tina Modotti. Master of photography | Courtesy Rai 5

Through the eyes of a political sentiment Modotti takes his most important photos immortalizing the working and peasant class of Mexico. His images reveal a well-defined ideology characterized by the symbols of work, the people and their redemption, the hands of workers, political and trade union demonstrations. On the other hand, Tina, recognized by the Library of Congress in Washington as a “master of the first photography of the 20th century”, did not believe in an “arranged” or “artistic” photography, but strenuously defended a photography without tricks, which denounced the naked and raw, without “effects” and manipulations.

Titian and Anish Kapoor arrive on Sky Arte
The Christmas week on Sky Arte opens with an intimate portrait that allows the public to dig deeper, like never before, into the character and art of one of the most famous artists in the world. Monday 19 December at 21.15 we will follow the premiere Anish Kapoor. Venetian Reda Sky Original production created by ZCZ, available exclusively on Sky Arte, streaming only on NOW and also on demand.
Solitary by nature, the Anglo-Indian artist has so far spoken very little about himself. The public still has in mind the two contemporary exhibitions held during the Venice Biennale 2022 at the Gallerie dell’Accademia and at Palazzo Manfrin, where the blood red, profuse in both exhibitions, displaced, and at the same time conquered once again, visitors from all over the world. Thanks to the dialogue between the director Waldemar Januszczak and the artist, the documentary exclusively on Sky Arte delves into some of his most turbulent and mysterious works exhibited in Venice, from Mount Moriah at the Gate of the Ghetto And Symphony for a Beloved Sun as far as Shooting Into the Corner. Ranging from the theme of the family to the role of the artist and his relationship with the contemporary art market, the dialogue provides an intimate portrait of Kapoor between childhood memories spent in India and Israel, the discovery of his artistic inclination and the adventure started with a hitchhiking trip from Istanbul to London in search of the right place to live in art.

Anish Kapoor. Venetian Red | Courtesy Sky Arte

On the other hand, Sky Arte Tuesdays are yellow. The second episode of Art Crimes titled Frans Hals: Gotha, 1979 and broadcast at 21.15 in first vision, it catapults us into 1979 when five Dutch masterpieces disappear from the tower of Castle Friedenstein, in East Germany. The investigations by the police and the Stasi lead to no results, despite numerous leads and over 1000 interrogations. In 2019, a mysterious phone call to the mayor of Gotha rekindles hopes of recovering the paintings. The head of the Berlin Art Squad, Inspector René Allonge, opens an investigation that takes him forty years back in time allowing him finally, in 2019, to solve the case. Conceived and written by Stefano Strocchi, Art Crimes is a Sky Original docu-series in six episodes produced by DocLab, Unknown Media, Sky and RBB/Arte, exclusively on Sky Arte from 13 December at 21.15 and streaming only on NOW, available even on demand.

However, Red is the color of Christmas signed by Sky. Sunday 25 December at 21.15 the Sky Original production Titian – The empire of color will be broadcast in first vision to reveal the wonders of the brilliant artist and extraordinary entrepreneur of himself. In fact, Tiziano Vecellio founded ”an empire” which from Venice reached the most important courts of Europe.

Art Crimes, Episode 2, Frans Hals: Gotha, 1979 | Courtesy Sky

On Arte TV a journey behind the images between art and artificial intelligence
The work Théâtre d’opéra spatial was created by the American Jason Allen thanks to Midjourney, a software accessible to all. On August 29, 2022 she was awarded the first prize in the “Digital Art” category of a competition at the Colorado State Fair (USA), inflaming the debate on the authorship of the work and on the actual merits of the author. But is a painting made by Artificial Intelligence therefore equivalent to a cheat or are we facing a turning point in the history of art? The word to the twelve-minute pill broadcast on Arte TV, entitled Behind the pictures. Art and artificial intelligence.