TURIN.- Pinacoteca Agnelli sets off on a new course which - with the appointment of Sarah Cosulich as artistic director - is set to transform the institution into a dynamic cultural centre, open to the multidisciplinary languages of the present while interfacing with the Pinacoteca's historical collection.

The new Pinacoteca opened its doors to the public on 27 May 2022. The institution aims to stage new exhibitions and site-specific projects commissioning both Italian and international artists specifically for its spaces. Through research, exhibition projects and partnerships with Italian and international institutions, the Pinacoteca becomes a place open to reflection on contemporary issues, promoting the inclusion and participation of a range of different audiences.

The new programme of Pinacoteca expands also on the iconic pista – a former test track on the roof of the Lingotto. The outdoor space is enriched with installations by international artists in dialogue with the industrial architecture, with the spectacular landscape and with the garden recently created on the pista. Thanks to the conversion project by FIAT, the Pista 500 is today the highest suspended park in Europe with its 40.000 plants and over 300 different species: a green lung 28 meters above the ground which, coherent to its original function of automobile testing track, is today also a unique test drive for the new electric 500 by FIAT.

THE PINACOTECA PROGRAMMING

There are three main project lines that characterise Pinacoteca's exhibition programme, stemming from a single curatorial perspective. The common starting point is in fact a reflection on the narratives arising from the Lingotto's own industrial heritage as well as from the museum's identity, strongly bound to its permanent collection.

● BEYOND THE COLLECTION – the Giovanni and Marella Agnelli Collection

Coinciding with the twentieth anniversary of the Renzo Piano designed ‘Scrigno’ exhibition space on the top of the Lingotto, for the first time, Pinacoteca introduces an unprecedented and ongoing exhibition project dedicated to the reinterpretation and reactivation of its permanent collection through its presences and absences. Setting out from a different artwork each time – to be placed in relation to others from international institutions – the Agnelli Collection aims to become a starting point from which to embark on a reflection on art history and historiography, as well as a critical tool with which to approach the present.

Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar.
A dialogue with the Fondation Beyeler
27.05–25.09.22
Curated by Sarah Cosulich, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, Beatrice Zanelli

The first edition of Beyond the Collection is dedicated to Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar and draws on the valuable partnership with the Fondation Beyeler in Basel. Picasso's portrait Homme appuyé sur une table (1915–1916) in the Pinacoteca is being shown for the first time in dialogue with Picasso's series of portraits depicting Dora Maar from the 1930s, on loan from the Fondation Beyeler. The project also features a selection of photographs by Maar herself along with the canvases. Three great masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, from one of the world's most prestigious institutions, enter the Pinacoteca to broaden interpretations and to tell new stories. The exhibition project brings to light Dora Maar not only as a subject of Picasso's portrayal but as an artist in her own right, central to the history of 20th-century art and a major intellectual point of reference for Picasso's own artistic practice.

● EXHIBITIONS

The third floor hosts exhibitions conceived and produced by Pinacoteca: monographic projects dedicated to contemporary artists as well as group exhibitions focused on trans-historical and multigenerational paths, designed to open up new readings of art history in relation to contemporary artistic practices.




Sylvie Fleury
Turn Me On
27.05.22–15.01.23
Curated by Sarah Cosulich and Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti

The exhibition marking the opening of the new Pinacoteca is dedicated to artist Sylvie Fleury. A pioneer and key reference point for emerging artistic practices, over the last thirty years Fleury has pursued multifaceted research that eludes currents and categorisation. Using a wide range of media from sculpture to painting, neon and installation, Fleury’s artistic vocabulary draws on objects and imagery from the worlds of fashion, science fiction and pop subcultures, exploring the mechanisms underpinning value construction and the manufacture of desires in contemporary society. Fleury produces works that intelligently and ironically address the tension between gender politics, consumerism and contemporary culture – first and foremost, that of art history. Her work resonates with Pinacoteca's desire to expand on the Lingotto's traditional narrative, connoted by the masculine imagery of the factory and the automobile, but also with that of a historical collection represented by male artists.

● THE PISTA 500
Outdoor sculpture and installation projects featuring commissioned international artists along the historical testing track on the Lingotto rooftop.

Initiated by FIAT who transformed the track into a roof garden designed by architects Camerana&Partners, the Pista 500 will open to the city as an inclusive and multifunctional space dedicated to public art. The projects on the Pista include environmental installations, light artworks, sound and expanded cinema installations, as well as architectural projects functional to the needs of the visitors walking around the track. The space takes a new form thanks to the collaboration with the artists involved, reflecting on the transformation of the Lingotto's industrial history from a closed circuit to a city street, from a site of production to a space for the community. Its interactive and engaging projects invite visitors to reflect on what public space means today, and which stories and monuments can inhabit it. The works challenge the legacy of the factory, exploring the social, cultural and political history of its transformation; they enter in dialogue with the natural and urban landscape surrounding the building, highlighting the tension between what is natural and what is artificial.

The programme will gradually be enriched with new installations over the next three years, building up an ever-evolving exhibition path, dotted throughout the spaces of the Pista.

MISSION
The exhibition projects are designed to build a strong identity for the institution, deriving also from the specificity of the venue that hosts it: the cultural and social history of the Lingotto, its relationship not only with the imagery of the automobile as symbol of speed and innovation, but also with the broader manufacturing context of Turin, as well as the presence of the industrial archaeology and its architectural presence.

The new Pinacoteca Agnelli identifies the museum as a place home to a vast range of stories and at the same time a driving force behind new narratives: an institution that looks back to the past through a contemporary gaze, to explore experiences, recount forgotten figures and reappraise the canonical narrative of art history in the light of our society’s needs.

Pinacoteca's projects for 2022 challenge the traditionally male narrative of art history up to the 21st century as well as the imagery of the automobile, ushering in plural perspectives to a place historically characterised by masculine iconography, symbols and narratives.

To implement Pinacoteca’s mission together with its new artistic direction, a new team has been structured in curatorial, communication, collection and education departments, with the inclusion of key staff figures responsible for the various fields of activities.

Pinacoteca acknowledges the central role to be played by education, in keeping with an approach that views art as a fundamental tool to discover the world and come to terms with its complexity. Institutional activities also include a discursive and performative public programme, aimed at deepening and expanding the exhibition programme and making it accessible to an ever-wider audience.

THE NEW VISUAL IDENTITY OF THE PINACOTECA AGNELLI

The institution is taking on a new visual identity, maintaining the key elements of the institution’s historical identity while transforming them to respond to its new programming outlook. In the new Pinacoteca logo, the ‘A’ in ‘Agnelli’ while remaining present, now becomes lowercase, underlining the new direction taken by the museum as an accessible, inclusive, dynamic and contemporary space open to everyone. The visual identity underlines the correspondence between the new Pinacoteca and the programme on the Pista, with the circular shape of the logo deriving from the curve of the track itself.