UNDER YOUR EYES Arte in Turin

Turin "Contemporary art city". Here is where to overcome the classic negative stereotype "museum = boredom" and to take a close look at the masterpieces collected in Turin. works costing a fortune.

EGYPTIAN MUSEUM

via Accademia delle Scienze 6
www.museoegizio.org
Par excellence symbol of Turin's museums, the most visited and loved by children, this museum is also very important at an international level (second only to Cairo's). It contains a really vast collection of exhibits, statues, vases and all sorts of objects concerning the life and the arts of ancient Egyptians. Combs, jewels, pendants, bronze objects, talismans, vases, cloths, mirrors, papyruses, sarcophagi, stele and even some left over food that has miraculously survived to our times! It is just like going back 6,000 years. The most attractive part, however, is always the display of mummies: well conserved and "horrific", they take us back to those ancient times. The exhibition is articulated on three floors and goes from the origins (4000 b. C.) to the V-VI century a. C. You certainly need at least a couple of spare hours to visit it properly. An absolute must is the statue of the Pharaoh Ramses II, that of princess Nedi establishes a real record for its age: approx. 2,800 years. Here the statues find an extraordinary set. The incredible effect given by lights and mirrors, wanted by the "Oscar Prize" Dante Ferretti, allow us to admire them in their 3D majesty and to discover the magic and mysterious fascination of Ancient Egypt.

Figurative Arts

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
via Modane 16 - www.fondsrr.org
Directed by Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, the Foundation encompasses the entire range of contemporary arts: visual arts, painting, sculpture, video, light installations and performances. Its motto is "Art goes well with blue". Founded inside the homonymous eighteenth century palace in Guarene d'Alba (CN), in 2002 it moved to the current premises, an interesting example of international architecture that is "simple, clear and rigorous". If you wish to complete your visit with a short tour of the area, we recommend via Torricelli and via Caboto,the "Igloo" fountain by Mario Merz. The work is part of a larger project that involves the realisation and distribution - along the tree lined boulevard running above the underground railway (Spina Centrale) - of eleven artistic creations. Worth mentioning are also "Albero giardino" by Giuseppe Penone and "Opera per Torino" by Per Kirkeby.

Rivoli Castle
piazza Mafalda di Savoia a Rivoli
The website www.castellodirivoli.it exhaustively presents one of Turin's most important museums: the Contemporary art museum. As well as the art exhibitions it offers a video collection, a library, a theatre, meeting rooms, a bookshop and - for gluttons - a cafeteria and the well known restaurant "Combal.Zero", on the renovated wing where the Savoy residence used to be. The exhibitions held here are very popular among the Turinese.

ANDREA BELLINI'S WORD

Artissima director
"Turin is a city which gave a lot to art. Just think about the research activity that the Galleria d'Arte Moderna has carried out for 50-60 years or about the importance of artistic movements, such as the "arte povera", that were born and have developed here. Turin should be an example for many other Italian cities which can as to do even more for young artists can understand that the strength of contemporary art consists in the ideas it has to express and not in the fact that someone decides to place a work of art in his own sitting room."

MAU
via Musinè 19
www.arte2000.net/mau
The MAU, Museum of Urban Art, will appeal to those who like the hip-hop art of murals. It exhibits 67 works of this kind on the walls between the shop windows along via Fabrizi and corso Svizzera. Soon they will have permanent lighting so it will be possible to admire them even in the dark.o.

MAO
via San Domenico 9-11
www.maotorino.it
The Mao, Oriental Art Museum, is one of the youngest proposals of the Turin music reality. Born in 2008, it has five different galleries dedicated to Southern Asia,China, Japan, Himalayan region and to Islamic Countries. With more than 1.500 works of art, among printings, ceramics, statues,original finds of different kinds,this museum that occupies four floors in Palazzo Mazzonis, offers an unexpected picture of Western Civilization to all curious openminded visitors either from Turin or not.

PAV
via Giordano Bruno 31
www.parcoartevivente.it
PAV stands for Parco d'arte Vivente (living art park). Its name is a programme. It is an experimental centre where science, nature and art meet together to give life to an open air exhibition , to an interactive museum, to definitely original forms of contemporary art. It is worth a visit... at least to understand what it is about!

Artist lights
For those who like modern art but feel claustrophobic inside museums Luci d'artista is the perfect exhibition. Created by Turin Council in 1998, it exhibits for 2 to 3 months of the year (around the Christmas holidays) works and installations with a great visual impact mounted directly in the squares and along the streets. Open air lights and colours to be discovered whilst walking and looking upwards.

Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli
via Nizza 230
www.pinacoteca-agnelli.it
The Pinacoteca Agnelli is inside what once was the Fiat factory production line. Designed by architect Renzo Piano, it exhibits the permanent collection of works previously belonging to the Agnelli family.An exhibition characterised by refined elegance and formal accuracy, just like the "trés chic" style of this prestigious family. The heart of the complex is called "lo scrigno" (the casket): 25 extremely valuable works ranging from Matisse, Canova, Tiepolo, Canaletto, Bellotto, Picasso, Renoir, Manet, Severini, Balla, up to Modigliani.

Fondazione Accorsi
via Po 55
www.fondazioneaccorsi.it
The Museum of decorative arts contains about 30 exhibition halls that used to belong to antiquarian and collector Pietro Accorsi. A rather dynamic museum, it hosts mainly pictorial exhibitions and discussions with art experts. Among the exhibits are tobacco boxes, silver pieces, crystals, furniture, carpets, paintings, porcelain objects and other 18th century objects. At times you have the impression that the old proprietor is still walking amongst the pieces he collected. The legend goes that every now and then Henry Ford would send Accorsi an open cheque, hoping that he'd sell him some of his prestigious furniture like the one signed Pietro Piffetti, the very able court Ebony carver who worked around the middle of the eighteenth century. However, the cheque was always returned to the sender untouched!

GAM
via Magenta 31
www.gamtorino.it
Turin's Museum Foundation includes three sites: the GAM - Modern Art Gallery, the Borgo and Rocca medievale in the Valentino Park and Palazzo Madama in piazza Castello. The Modern Art Gallery exhibits over 15,000 works. Within the nineteenth century section there are works by D'Azeglio, Delleani, Mancini, Pellizza da Volpedo and Medardo Rosso. More recent works are those of Casorati, Martini, Morandi and De Pisis. If you're interested in the Avant-garde, you can admire artists such as Modigliani, Balla, De Chirico, Klee, Dix, Ernst and Picabia. Don't miss the temporary exhibitions.

Savoy Gallery
via Accademia delle Scienze 6
Sharing the Egyptian Museum's premises is one of the most important Italian pinacoteche (picture galleries): it covers two centuries of history and exhibits Savoy dynastic collections and great masterpieces. For example "Cena in casa di Simone" (Dinner in Simon's house) by Veronese, two Rubens paintings, the "Colosseo e Foro romano" by Van Wittel and Beaumont's "Trionfo della Pace"(Peace triumph).

Promotrice delle Belle Arti
via Crivelli 11
Immersed in the Valentino Park's greenery, it usually presents impressive art exhibitions.

Pinacoteca Accademia Albertina
via Accademia Albertina 8
www.accademialbertina.torino.it
Founded at the beginning of the XIX century and incremented by king Carlo Alberto's donations, it boasts over 300 paintings, sculptures and drawings, arranged in 12 large salons.

Spazio Bolaffi
via Cavour 17
Famous for the first anthological exhibition in Piedmont. Exhibiting over 50 oil pieces and works made with different materials, for instance using recycled refuse, as well as a beautiful hall with creations made by emerging artists. Nearby the Historical shop, Bolaffi, which sells stamps and other collectible objects.

Fondazione Merz
via Limone 24
www.fondazionemerz.org
Once an industrial building of the 50s,it now hosts the works of art by Mario Merz,famous contemporary artist, Turinese by adoption.

Artissima
www.artissima.it
It is not a museum, but an international art fair that every year attracts artists from all over the world and make people from Turin approach this incomprehensible and unknown world.

Not just art...

Museo della Sindone
chiesa del SS. Sudario
via San Domenico 28
www.sindone.it
Here you can find many documents concerning the white linen sheet that according to tradition was used to wrap Christ's body.Related to the theme there are objects of cult, paintings, texts, graphs and virtual reproductions. The exhibit we recommend you not to miss is the famous case used to transport it from Chambery to Turin in 1578, after a large fire

Museo Pietro Micca
via Guicciardini 7 A
www.museopietromicca.it
During the night of August 29, 1706 some French grenadiers tried to break into the underground passages of the city. Turin was under siege and a heroic soldier, Pietro Micca, succeeded in stopping them though at the cost of his life.The museum tells this part of the story also by a visit along the dark and narrow tunnels of the cittadella, right to the places where the historical events actually took place.

Museo del Risorgimento
via Accademia delle Scienze 5
www.regione.piemonte.it/cultura/risorgimento
Dedicated to the unification process of the Italian peninsula, it lies within Palazzo Carignano, building that has historical as well as artistic importance. Here in 1848 the Chamber of Deputies of the Piedmontese Parliament was held and, from 1861, the Italian State parliament. The national unification process is clarified by exhibiting all the facts in chronological order: from the nineteenth century to the Second World War. The Museum also has a well-documented historical archive.

Resistance Museum
corso Valdocco 4 A
www.istoreto.it
Since the history of the partisan fights characterised Turin, it is important to mention also the Resistance Museum. Located inside the military quarter buildings it includes a cinematography archive (ANCR) as well as the "Istituto piemontese per la storia della Resistenza e della società contemporanea (ISTORETO)" (Piedmontese Institute for the history of Resistance and contemporary society).

National Mountain Museum Duke of Abruzzi
via Giardino 39
www.museomontagna.org
The Museum is the ideal place in which to understand the intense relation between Turin and the Alpine Mountains surrounding it.The museum was set up by the CAI - Italian Alpine Club foundation and takes its name from Prince Luigi of Savoy, Duca degli Abruzzi. He was the first honorary president and his were some of the objects exhibited that he used during the expedition to the North Pole.

National Car Museum
corso Unità d’Italia 40
www.museoauto.org
The museum bears the name of its founder Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia, and truthfully represents what cars, and Fiat, have been for Turin. Those interested in racing will appreciate the many sports cars on display. Of course, there are also American sedans and nineteenth century horse driven calashes. Since 2010 its exhibition will be dynamic and signed by Francois Confino, the architect who conceived the fantastic set designs of the National Cinema Museum.

Radio and Television Museum
via Verdi 16
museo-rai@rai.it
Open only when previously booked. Here you can admire the entire collection of Rai (National Italian Television), founded here in Turin, and exhibits old radios and black and white televisions. There are as many as 1500 memorabilia, including some documents but especially technical equipment of historical value.

Regional Natural Science Museum
via Giolitti 36
This museum is arranged in the following sections: botanical science, entomology, mineralogy, petrography, geology, palaeontology and zoology. For children, many interesting and instructive nature trails.

Museo di Antichità
via XX Settembre 88/c - www.museoantichita.it
Founded around the middle of the sixteenth century with the first collections belonging to Emanuele Filiberto Savoy and Carlo Emanuele I. It contains many historical and archaeological collections, as well as ceramics and sculptures in bronze and silver.

Museo A come Ambiente (Environment Museum)
corso Umbria 84 - www.museoambiente.org
Located in a former industrial plant, this museum bears the artistic mark of Ugo Nespolo, and is a sort of large laboratory in which to familiarise with the environment through multimedia and interactive routes.

Criminal Anthropology Museum "Cesare Lombroso"
Via Pietro Giuria 15
www.museounito.it/lombroso
The museum is devoted to the difficult world of criminology starting from the studies of the famous anthropologist who gives his name to the exhibition.

Fruit Museum
via Pietro Giuria 15
www.museodellefrutta.it
Really bizarre:more than a thousand artificial plastic fruits that look as if they are real can be admired in this museum that gather Francesco Garnier Valletti's collection. That's to say: a 19th century hymn to biodiversity.

Puppet Museum
via Santa Teresa 5
www.museomarionettelupi.com
Hundreds of antique, precious, new and old puppets crowd the underground of Santa Teresa church where this museum is located. It is a collection belonging to the Lupi family the most famous puppeteers active in Turin for more than 200 years.

School and Child Book Museum
via delle Orfane 7
www.fondazionetancredidibarolo.com
Wooden desks, ink bottles, nibs and school books. Everything at least is a century old. Inside the polished Palazzo Barolo, you can live the school atmosphere of your grandparents, but... careful not to be sent behind the blackboard!