September 4, 2026

Sophie Ko. Testimoni

From October 14th to December 23rd, 2026, BUILDING GALLERY presents “Testimoni”, a solo exhibition by Georgian artist Sophie Ko (Tbilisi, 1981)—represented by the gallery—curated by Federico Ferrari.

Six years after her participation in the exhibition “Materie, Spazi, Visioni” (2020), BUILDING dedicates a major solo show to the artist, offering a comprehensive overview of her graphic, pictorial, sculptural, and installation work across the gallery’s three exhibition floors. On this occasion, Sophie Ko unveils to the public for the first time a body of around sixty works that trace the themes and mediums characterizing her practice.

Sophie Ko’s practice is complex, oriented toward a radical dialogue with art history. This is made possible through an exceptionally refined formal approach, combining meticulous material craft with a delicate, almost ascetic poetic vision. The brand-new works presented at BUILDING GALLERY mark the most advanced point of a journey begun fifteen years ago with her first “Geografie temporali”.

Pure pigment, gold leaf, tree bark—the support on which eyes are painted for “Testimoni” (2026), filling the first floor—bronze for sculptural presences, and burnt image fragments that the artist calls “unburnt remains” from the “Waldgänger” series (2013): these are the materials underpinning Sophie Ko’s visual grammar, chosen for their ability to both preserve and threaten form.

September 4, 2026

Nell’Oltretempo. Giuseppe Caccavale

“Nell’ Oltretempo'” is the project featuring Giuseppe Caccavale as the “intruder” of the FIFTH RESONANCE, invited to establish a dialogue with the heritage of the GAM.

Together with curators Chiara Bertola and Virginia Lupo, the artist explored the museum’s rich vaults, selecting a core group of plaster casts and several paintings dedicated to mountain landscapes—with a particular focus on the peaks that frame the Turin skyline. The choice of works stems from a search for formal, iconographic, and poetic correspondences: the plaster casts, evoking a form suspended between model and finished artwork, and the mountain paintings, images of both real and symbolic landscapes, become interlocutors for Caccavale’s artistic language, which has always been centered on the transmission of knowledge, the memory of images, and writing as a gesture of connection.

Caccavale’s site-specific intervention for the Contemporary Art Space will unfold directly on the walls using “spolvero” —a recurring technique in his practice that transfers script through charcoal dust and contact, evoking both the fragility and persistence of the mark. The wall artwork will envelop the exhibition space, creating an environment into which the selected works from storage will be integrated.

August 27, 2026

Il corpo della città

Turin is a city that has managed to reinvent itself multiple times throughout its history. After losing its role as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy in 1865, it forged new identities through industry, culture, fashion, art, and innovation. It is precisely this process of transformation that serves as the starting point for “Il corpo della città”, the new exhibition at Palazzo Madama Torino—running from October 15th, 2026, to February 22nd, 2027—which tells the story of a century of Turin’s history through the body: represented, dressed, disciplined, liberated, and transformed by the profound evolutions of modern society.

In ideal continuity with the exhibition “MonumenTo. La forma della memoria”, this project offers an original perspective through which to observe the evolution of the city via the body—conceived not merely as an artistic subject, but as a space reflecting social, economic, and cultural changes, and as an ideal intersection between fashion, art, and urban transformations. While “MonumenTo” questioned the relationship between the city and its monuments, “Il corpo della città” shifts the focus onto people, examining the intimate relationship connecting the city’s forms to those of its inhabitants, their clothing, and their gestures during each of the historical moments in which Turin built and reinvented its identity.

Through paintings, sculptures, garments, photographs, posters, and historical documents, the exhibition guides visitors along a narrative marked by the great International Expositions—from the Italian General Exhibition of 1884 to the landmark Italia 61 exposition. It offers a reflection on the city as a living, constantly evolving organism, and on the body as the place where the changes of modernity become visible.

July 29, 2026

Paesaggi da sogno / Dreamscapes

From July 24th to November 29th, 2026, the MAO Museo d’Arte Orientale in Turin presents the exhibition “Paesaggi da sogno / Dreamscapes”, dedicated to the famous series “The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō” by Utagawa Hiroshige, one of the absolute masterpieces of 19th-century Japanese art, owned by UniCredit.

The exhibition itinerary brings together a selection of 36 prints aimed at offering the public the immersive and “cinematic” dimension of that floating world, while expanding the focus to include objects and forms of material culture that accompanied and enabled the experience of travel in 18th and 19th-century Japan.

The project—the second part of a journey initiated at MAO in 2025—is curated by Laura Vigo, Curator for Asian Art and Archaeology at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), together with Claudia Ramasso, curator at MAO, and features a key collaboration with the Musei Reali di Torino.

In the galleries of MAO, the famous views of the Tōkaidō engage in dialogue with a lacquered wooden saddle (kura) with gold decorations and Felice Beato’s photo album “Views of Japan”, two highly valuable works from the collections of the Musei Reali di Torino. Both offer a tangible testimony to the culture of travel along Japan’s major arteries during the Edo period and the imagery evoked by the prints.

July 29, 2026

Song Dong. Soul Out

From 23rd October 2026 to 27th June 2027, MAO, Turin is hosting “Song Dong. Soul Out”, the first solo exhibition in Italy of works by the artist Song Dong (Beijing, 1966), curated by Li Zhenhua and Davide Quadrio, with Francesca Filisetti and Rebecca Ricci. The exhibition is conceived as a site-specific project that involves the whole museum, transforming it into a narrative device in which Song Dong’s works enter into dialogue with the permanent collection and the historical architecture of Palazzo Mazzonis.

Bringing together some of the artist’s most iconic installations, along with an archive of photographs and videos of performances dating from the 1990s to today, “Song Dong. Soul Out” traces back over more than thirty years of work, highlighting a practice that intertwines individual experience and collective history, private memory and social transformation, while offering a window onto contemporary China.

Song Dong’s work is rooted in the thought of Laozi and Zhuangzi, ancient masters of Taoist philosophy, reformulating their concepts of the fluidity of existence and non-action using an intuitive approach that is also influenced by Zen philosophy. His language also engages with some of the main international art currents of the second half of the 20th century, from Italian Arte Povera to Japanese Mono-Ha and American Minimalism and Conceptual Art. While deeply tied to Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, Song Dong’s poetics draw on a multiplicity of experiences and sensibilities. Through minimal gestures, repetition and the transformation of ordinary and quotidian materials, the artist’s work offers a reflection on time, impermanence and the fragility of the human condition.

July 29, 2026

Marisa Merz. La danza delle ore

Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Fondazione Merz, and GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino have come together to collaborate on a three-part exhibition celebrating the centenary of Marisa Merz’s birth, realized thanks to the support of Fondazione CRT. Conceived to trace the work and legacy of the artist born in Turin on May 23rd, 1926, “Marisa Merz – La danza delle ore” is an unprecedented retrospective that is unlikely to be replicated in its completeness and depth.

The exhibition brings together an extraordinary body of work, including previously unseen pieces, bearing witness to a creative life that continues to be a source of inspiration and artistic rediscovery worldwide. The three episodes of the exhibition offer the opportunity to delve into various aspects, such as the creative process and the use of materials, everyday time as a creative dimension, the home as an alchemical laboratory, and the notion of space as both a physical and metaphysical place. Overall, the exhibition aims to account for the continuous evolution and transformation that the artist enacted throughout her existence, giving life to a body of work that remains constantly open.

The exhibition at Castello di Rivoli, curated by Francesco Manacorda and Marianna Vecellio, provides the occasion to reconstruct and present once again to the public the installation “E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare”, an important project that Marisa presented in 1980 at the Tucci Russo gallery in Turin and subsequently created a new version of that same year at the 39th Venice Visual Arts Biennale. The installation, located in the Manica Lunga on the third floor of Castello di Rivoli, will serve as the exhibition’s centerpiece from which various themes and research threads will branch out: the tension toward revealing the invisible and the artist’s ability to visualize metaphysical visions, exposing reality beyond its sensory appearances. Furthermore, the exhibition invites a group of female artists who continue elements of Marisa’s practice and vision to participate in an expanded retrospective: Leonor Antunes (Lisbon, 1972), Micol Assaël (Rome, 1979), Beatrice Bonino (Turin, 1992), Miriam Cahn (Basel, 1949), Tacita Dean (Canterbury, 1965), Thea Djordjadze (Tbilisi, Georgia, 1971), Lara Favaretto (Treviso, 1973), Daiga Grantina (Saldus, Latvia, 1985), Armineh Negahdari (Tehran, 1994), and Solange Pessoa (Ferros, Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1961).
“The exhibition at the Castello,” observe Francesco Manacorda and Marianna Vecellio, “places the emphasis on the environmental dimension of Marisa Merz’s practice, giving life to a polyphonic story that speaks of the sky and flight, of parallel universes and the lunar, spiritual, and female sphere.“

Fondazione Merz presents, curated by Beatrice Merz and Sébastien Delot, the most unexpected side of the artist’s research through a selection of works organized around the idea of process and transformation. A central theme is Marisa’s approach to the selection and arrangement of materials, along with her way of “making” and composing works: an apparent imbalance that reveals itself to be a precise balance, capable of bringing out the hidden potential of objects and materials. The works, sometimes seemingly ephemeral, arise from a process of continuous evolution made of subtle variations through which the artist progressively approaches the essence of her subjects.
“Fondazione Merz,” say Beatrice Merz and Sébastien Delot, “with this exhibition configures itself as a privileged venue dedicated to the unseen and to experimental research: a space where visitors can access the artist’s most hidden realm, her germinal thoughts, insights, and the silent dialogue that accompanies the birth of her works. What is revealed is a deeply personal expressive language in which high and low, high culture and popular culture, artistic and daily practices intertw to give birth to surprising works marked by a subtle strength.“

At the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, curated by Chiara Bertola and Chiara Parisi, the most intimate chapter of the exhibition will be presented through a historical reading focusing on the more everyday and domestic aspects of Marisa Merz’s research. The exhibition route will begin from the concept of the home-studio-workshop—the generative and transformative space par excellence, where the dimension of art coincides with that of life. The exhibition is also the opportunity to return to the public, following a careful restoration by the Centro di Conservazione e Restauro di Venaria, the work in the GAM collection “Living Sculpture”, 1966.
“The exhibition at GAM,” state Chiara Bertola and Chiara Parisi, “configures itself as an intimate and welcoming space, capable of evoking the domestic dimension. Important historical works coexist with moments of contemplation and introspection, visualizing open and constantly evolving creative processes. The itinerary thus becomes a metaphor for artistic creation that feeds on relationships and time, where every element contributes to the creation of the work.“

The exhibition will be accompanied by a single catalogue, which will be presented on the occasion of a conference dedicated to the artist.

July 24, 2026

Chiara Gambirasio. Chasing Rainbows

From September 10th to October 10th, 2026, BUILDING TERZO PIANO presents Chasing Rainbows, a solo exhibition by Chiara Gambirasio (Bergamo, 1996) curated by Giulia Bortoluzzi.

The main body of works on display is the result of new productions created by Gambirasio following her artist residency in Iceland (Herhúsið), held from February 26 to April 1, 2026. Initially conceived as a “chase for rainbows” and ephemeral atmospheric phenomena capable of awakening wonder through their beauty and unpredictability, the artist’s expedition gradually transformed into a more intimate journey of research: moving from the investigation of extrinsic forms of interiorization, such as iridescence, to the practice of contemplation, up to the exploration of a personal and intimate space of light.

Indeed, the experience of living surrounded by the white of the snow reversed the pursuit of the fleeting and ephemeral mark, inviting the artist to pause within her own emotional depths. The time usually spent waiting was thus transformed into a generative time of listening and observation—an active time of possibility and spontaneity.

This process of personal discovery and inner growth takes shape within the spaces of BUILDING TERZO PIANO through a path mediated by Gambirasio among different phases and states of her inquiry into the absolute. The gallery environment is not conceived by the artist merely as a three-dimensional space, but is also experienced in its fourth dimension: time. The works are thus arranged like cardinal or orientation points within an ideal exploratory field. Their behavior and the way they offer themselves to the visitor’s experience are, in fact, mutable: depending on the quality of light, temperature, or movements generated around them, the sculptures dotting the main “clearing” become instruments through which to read and comprehend the space.

July 24, 2026

Antonio Fontanesi. Transcending Landscape. A European Artist at the Opening of Japan

The activities of the sixth cultural line of Fondazione Torino Musei, dedicated to international initiatives, enter a new chapter with the major exhibition project on Antonio Fontanesi (1818–1882), produced by GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino on the occasion of the celebrations for the 160th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Italy and Japan. Between 2026 and 2027, the exhibition will travel to three major museum venues in the principal Japanese cities of Kyoto, Tokyo, and Nagoya, the result of an outstanding scientific and institutional cooperation between the two countries.

Antonio Fontanesi. Transcending Landscape. A European Artist at the Opening of Japan, curated by Elena Volpato and Alessandro Botta, proposes a reinterpretation of Fontanesi as a leading figure in 19th-century European landscape painting and as the architect of one of the most significant encounters between Western artistic culture and Meiji-era Japan.

One hundred and fifty years after Antonio Fontanesi’s stay in Japan and nearly fifty years since the landmark exhibition Fontanesi, Ragusa and Japanese Art in the Early Meiji Period (Tokyo and Kyoto, 1977–1978), the project re-examines the artist’s role in Japan, where between 1876 and 1878 he was invited to teach at the Kōbu Bijutsu Gakkō, playing a decisive role in the formation of the modern Japanese school of painting. Through his teaching—rooted in the direct observation of nature and the practice of painting en plein air—Fontanesi introduced a new approach to landscape representation that was destined to exert a profound influence on subsequent generations of Japanese artists.

The exhibition brings together over two hundred works from Italian and Japanese collections, including paintings (with masterpieces such as La quiete, Novembre, Aprile, and Le nubi, ), drawings, and graphic works, offering the most comprehensive survey dedicated to his artistic activity and cultural legacy in recent decades. The exhibition itinerary retraces the key stages of his career, from his formative years and Swiss stay to his French and English experiences, through to his return to Italy and the final developments of his artistic research.

July 23, 2026

Kaari Upson. Dollhouse

The MASI Lugano presents the first major posthumous retrospective dedicated to the American artist Kaari Upson (1970–2021). Known to European audiences for her participation in the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), Upson is among the most compelling and original voices of her generation. Through sculpture, video, drawing, and installation, over the course of little more than fifteen years the artist developed a layered visual language through which she explored themes such as relationships, the body, illness, and loss. Her works—suspended between intimacy and alienation—evoke a disturbing universe in which everyday objects and environments are transformed into repositories of trauma and obsession. Upson’s work thus reveals a portrait that, while rooted in her biography and her place of origin, San Bernardino, California, assumes both an intimate and universal dimension of the contemporary psyche.

The exhibition at MASI encompasses the artist’s entire body of work and is structured into five chapters which, in a broadly chronological progression, trace the gradual focus of Upson’s artistic research towards intimate themes connected to her personal and family history: When Kaari Meets Larry, The Life of Things, Dollhouse – A Giant Miniature, Inner Cartographies, and Body, Memory and Fallibility.

Among the emblematic works presented in the exhibition in Lugano are several series from the celebrated Larry Project (2005–12); the monumental installation “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS OUTSIDE” (2017–19), created for the 2019 Venice Biennale, and the environmental work “Mother’s Legs”, as well as her final series, “Foot Face Paintings”, presented to the public for the first time on this occasion.

“Kaari Upson. Dollhouse”, the first major posthumous retrospective dedicated to her, invites visitors to encounter an artist whose work continues to resonate even after her premature passing: unsettling, moving, and of extraordinary contemporary relevance,” say Francesca Benini and Taisse Grandi Venturi, curators of the exhibition.

July 10, 2026

Deutsche Bank “Artist of the Year” 2025

From 18 September to 1 November 2026, MUDEC – Museum of Cultures presents, in partnership with Deutsche Bank and in collaboration with 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo Il Sole 24 ORE, “Make a travel deep of your inside, and don’t forget me to take”, an exhibition by Singaporean-Chinese artist Charmaine Poh, named Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year 2025. Curated by Britta Färber, Global Head of Art & Culture at Deutsche Bank, the exhibition arrives in Milan following its presentation at PalaisPopulaire in Berlin and marks the artist’s first solo exhibition in Italy.

For the fifth consecutive year, the Artist of the Year exhibition returns to MUDEC, reaffirming the partnership between Deutsche Bank and 24 ORE Cultura – Gruppo Il Sole 24 ORE, established in 2022 and rooted in a shared commitment to exploring the languages and key issues of contemporary art. This ongoing collaboration reflects a common ambition to engage ever wider audiences with artistic practices that examine the complexities of the present through new cultural, social and political perspectives.

As with previous editions, the exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive public programme designed to expand the visitor experience through workshops, talks, guided tours and participatory activities tailored to a wide range of audiences. Developed around the central themes of Poh’s practice including digital identity, the representation of the body, public visibility, relationships and emerging forms of sociality—the programme transforms the exhibition into an active, immersive experience, fostering dialogue between contemporary art and some of the defining issues of our time.

Born in Singapore in 1990, Charmaine Poh is the youngest artist to have received the Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year award to date. Working across video, installation, photography, text and performance, Poh has developed a multidisciplinary practice that interweaves personal experience with digital technologies, memory, ecology, cyberfeminism and history. Her work explores questions of identity, structures of power, queerness and contemporary modes of representation.