A museum’s primary purpose is, above all, to build a collection. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev – director of Castello di Rivoli until the end of 2023 – has consistently emphasized this in her interviews, just as it was clear to her predecessors: Rudi Fuchs, followed by Ida Giannelli, and later Beatrice Merz with Andrea Bellini. Exactly as in previous transitions, the appointment of the new director, Francesco Manacorda, coincides with the staging of a major exhibition, Ouverture 2024, designed both to showcase the museum’s collection and to set out the vision for its future evolution.

Ingela Ihrman, “Amorphophallus titanum” (“The Titan Arum”), 2013. “The Giant Hogweed”, 2016. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Gift of the Supporting Friends and Benefactors of the Castello di Rivoli. Richard Long, “Rivoli Mud Circle”, 1996. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Courtesy Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
Inaugurated on December 19, 2024, marking the fortieth anniversary of Castello di Rivoli (the first Italian museum exclusively dedicated to contemporary art) Ouverture 2024 draws its title from the inaugural exhibition curated by Rudi Fuchs in 1984, echoing its programmatic intent: to project a vision for the future. While that exhibition presented an ideal selection of works proposed for the museum’s collection, the current show aims to critically interrogate its significance after four decades. The idea of a museum developing in parallel with its collection – a key distinction from a kunsthalle, which is exclusively focused on temporary exhibitions – is reaffirmed with particular emphasis on this anniversary. Ouverture 2024 is not a thematic exhibition but a public manifestation of the collection itself. Within it, pressing issues and potential directions for the future are clearly reflected, blending established artistic trends with the museum’s latest acquisitions, including works selected at the most recent edition of Artissima. This configuration positions the museum as an institution that embraces «multiple modernities and parallel systems of knowledge, not just Western», as articulated by Marcella Beccaria and Francesco Manacorda. This openness builds on a trajectory that had already begun under Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, who broadened the historical scope of the collection through the inclusion of the Fondazione Cerruti ancient art collection, housed at Villa Cerruti; not to mention her pioneering joint directorship with the GAM (Galleria d’Arte Moderna) in Turin. Today, this vision continues to evolve, strengthened by the current period of renewal in Turin. The recent appointments of Chiara Bertola at GAM and Davide Quadrio at MAO (Museo d’Arte Orientale) have created a fertile environment where the leadership of the three museums engage in dialogue to foster more inclusive and less Western-centric narratives.

Pierre Huyghe, “A Journey That Wasn’t”, 2005, super 16 mm film and HD video transferred to HD video, color, sound, inkjet print poster “Isla Ociosidad”. 21 min. 41 sec., framed poster 33,5 x 27,5 cm. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino on loan from Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. Courtesy the artist
This dialogue between the past and the future, the institution and the community, is fully expressed in the works on display. It is these works that make tangible the complexity of current urgencies. The first pieces address the environment and the climate crisis, enriching the themes of cohabitation and collaboration explored in Mutual Aid, the temporary exhibition currently on view in the Manica Lunga. Richard Long engages in dialogue with Ingela Ihrman. The connection between them lies in their shared relationship with nature, a realm in which the British artist loved to walk and from which he sourced the materials for his works. Organic matter is a common thread for both artists: the mud used in Long’s wall paintings and the wheat flour in Ihrman’s botanical sculptures. Anri Sala’s delicate video piece, If and Only If, guides the visitor toward the next encounter, between Michelangelo Pistoletto and Roni Horn.

Roni Horn, “Still Water. The River Thames, for Example”, 1999 (detail), photolithography on uncoated paper, photographs with text, 77,5 x 105,5 cm each. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Photo Renato Ghiazza
Through the division of mirrored surfaces in L’architettura dello specchio, Pistoletto proposed an approach that challenged the logic of accumulation and exclusion. In contrast, in Horn’s work Still Water. River Thames, for example, the black waters of the Thames, in which it is impossible to see one’s reflection, become a vehicle for a flow of thoughts that dissolve into the depths of the river. The reflection that takes shape – in its anatomical sense and collides with an inescapable reality is at the heart of Sara Enrica’s works. Recently acquired by the collection with one of her concrete sculptures, the artist evokes gestural scores typical of the iconography of rest, despite the raw material chosen being anything but soft.

Anna Boghiguian, “The Salt Traders”, 2015, installation view, overall dimensions determined by the space. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino, on loan from Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. Photo Renato Ghiazza
Despite the physical distance between them on the floor plan of Castello di Rivoli, Pierre Huyghe and Anna Boghiguian metaphorically employ the same language – using, in practice, fictional storytelling as a tool – to narrate two geographically distant tales. The French artist is present on the first floor with a cinematic piece, A Journey That Wasn’t, focused on a group of scholars’ journey to Antarctica, determined to explore the newly exposed lands due to melting ice. The journey referenced in Anna Boghiguian’s environmental installation, The Salt Traders, is that undertaken by salt traders. According to the Egyptian artist’s narrative, the wreckage displayed in the exhibition would have emerged from the melting ice, possibly in the North Sea, around 2300 A.D., becoming witnesses to the politics of salt – a precious preservative and currency of exchange since the time of Alexander the Great.

Maria Thereza Alves, “A Proposal for Syncretism – This Time Without Genocide”, 2018, tile, wood, metal frame, 270 x 260 x 100 cm. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino, on loan from Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. Photo Renato Ghiazza
The exhibition route concludes with a reflection on the consequences of colonialism. Lothar Baumgarten’s immovable blue room, whose walls are adorned with exotic bird feathers and their names, alludes to the verbal appropriation by Europeans in tropical America. Maria Thereza Alves, on the other hand, paints plant species introduced into Italy following Christopher Columbus’s voyages. Finally, Zhanna Kadyrova, an artist of Ukrainian origin, forces our gaze onto the consequences of wartime destruction. A table set with bread, sculpted in granite and concrete, conceals the remnants of buildings destroyed by Russian bombings.

Zhanna Kadyrova, “Palianytsia (Poland)”, 2022. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino, on loan from Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT. Zhanna Kadyrova, “Anxiety”, 2023. Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Gift of the artist. Courtesy Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Torino. Photo Ela Bialkowska OKNO studio
The intention of the original Ouverture survives in today’s installation, with its free associations and unexpected juxtapositions, preserving at Rivoli the spirit of «[…] a castle with diverse works where one can walk from one surprise to another[1]». Ouverture 2024 sends a clear signal of resilience, presenting itself as a manifesto for the art museum: a space capable of engaging with a layered past, symbolically represented by the baroque walls housing the collection, while also projecting itself into a future where diversity and alternative systems of thought find meaningful representation.
Mattia Caggiano
[1] L. Curino, Un castello per 70 artisti. Intervista con Rudi Fuchs regista della mostra internazionale di Rivoli, in “La Stampa”, 13 dicembre 1984
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Mattia Caggiano (Asti, 1999) is a young art critic and theorist, currently based in Venice and Torino. His work focuses on themes related to environmental installation and the interaction between the artwork and its surrounding context. Through an approach rich in disciplinary crossovers, he explores the aesthetic dynamics and dialogues that emerge between art, environment, and experience, contributing to a deeper understanding of the contemporary landscape via long-term research presented in essays and publications.
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