Hotel Milu Florence, part of Milu Group, today announces the opening of Le Dame di Blub (The Ladies of Blub); an exhibition by unidentified Florentine street artist Blub and curated by Max-y Gallery created to mark Milu Group’s tenth birthday. Running from 8 October to 8 December 2026, the exhibition brings seven works into the public spaces of the hotel, continuing the dialogue between contemporary art and hospitality that has been central to Milu Group since it opened Hotel Milu – the group’s first property – on Via de’ Tornabuoni in 2016.
Developed in collaboration with Hotel Milu Florence, the 22-room boutique art-hotel in the city centre, Le Dame di Blub draws inspiration from the hotel’s location and from the surrounding streets, which have long provided a backdrop to Blub’s urban interventions.
Blub is the faceless artist behind L’Arte Sa Nuotare (Art Knows How to Swim), a project launched in 2013 that has become a distinctive presence within Florence’s contemporary street-art landscape. Water sits at the heart of Blub’s visual language, manifesting a suspended, silent space in which familiar rules are temporarily overturned and figures from different periods can coexist. Their practice reimagines celebrated figures from art, culture, music and entertainment — from Botticelli, Leonardo and Michelangelo to David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Amy Winehouse — submerged underwater, creating a playful dialogue between historical memory and contemporary popular culture.
Since beginning L’Arte Sa Nuotare, their work has travelled beyond Florence to cities across Italy and internationally, with exhibitions including the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli in 2019, Museo Civico di Bari in 2022 and Opéra de Reims in France in 2024.
This relationship between the streets of Florence and the spaces of Hotel Milu sits at the heart of the collaboration. Conceived as a living gallery, Hotel Milu Florence integrates a curated collection of contemporary art throughout its interiors, allowing guests to encounter works as they move through the property rather than within a separate, conventional gallery setting. Le Dame di Blub will add a new layer to this approach, bringing the work of an artist closely associated with Florence’s urban landscape into the fabric of the hotel itself.
The exhibition will comprise seven works from Blub’s repertoire, including Dama con l’ermellino (Lady with an Ermine), Bianca de’ Medici, La Venere (The Venus), Monna Lisa and the paired portraits of Battista Sforza and Federico da Montefeltro. On the hotel’s fifth floor, Nudo di Modigliani will provide an unexpected addition, paying tribute to one of Blub’s favourite artists and greeting guests at the entrance to the rooms.
The works are canvas reproductions of existing pieces from Blub’s repertoire, produced in dimensions specifically conceived for the spaces of Hotel Milu. Each has then been individually hand-retouched and signed by the artist, resulting in versions that are unique to the exhibition and depart from the formats of his usual production. Through this new setting, familiar icons are brought into closer contact with the viewer, stripping away some of the distance traditionally associated with art history and inviting a more immediate encounter with the figures themselves.
Angela Focareta, General Manager of Hotel Milu Florence says: “Celebrating ten years of Milu in Florence is incredibly meaningful for us, and we wanted to mark the occasion in a way that felt true to the hotel and to the city that has shaped its identity from the beginning. Art has always been part of the experience at Milu, so collaborating with Blub felt like a natural way to celebrate. Their work brings a new energy to the hotel and, we hope, offers our guests another way to experience Florence and its creativity.”
The opening of Hotel Milu Florence ten years ago laid the foundations for Milu Group’s approach to hospitality: creating individual, design-conscious properties that respond to the architecture, culture and character of their surroundings. The Group has since expanded across Italy with sister property Hotel Milu Milan and the Hotel Calimala brand with properties in Florence and Milan, each with its own identity, design, gastronomy concept and a strong sense of place. Hotel Calimala Florence brings contemporary design and hospitality to the city’s historic centre, with Angel Roofbar & Dining overlooking Florence from its rooftop, while Hotel Milu Milan translates the intimate character of the original Milu concept to the Italian design capital. The Group’s latest opening, Hotel Calimala Milan, is located in Porta Venezia and continues Calimala’s design-led approach to urban hospitality, complete with FIVE, its rooftop destination with a pool, restaurant and bar.
A decade after the opening of its first hotel, Le Dame di Blub brings Milu Group back to the place where its story began. Rooted in Florence yet contemporary in its approach, the collaboration reflects a relationship with art, design and local culture that has evolved alongside the Group over the past ten years and will continue to be central to its approach in these and new projects, in the years to come.
Le Dame di Blub will be open between 8 October – 8 December at Hotel Milu Florence at Via de’ Tornabuoni in 2016. Entry to the exhibition will be between the hours of 12:00 until 20:00, Mon-Sun, access is free.
