The 5 Best Shows to See in Turin Ahead of Artissima

​‘Mutual Aid – Art in collaboration with nature’ | Castello di Rivoli | 31 October – 23 March 2025

One of the names on the artist list for the exhibition ‘Mutual Aid’ is Castor fiber Linnaeus, also known as the Eurasian beaver. Another, Nephila senegalensis, is more commonly recognized as the banded-legged golden orb-web spider. As the co-creators of works by Aki Inomata and Tomás Saraceno respectively, these species share equal billing with their human counterparts, in an exhibition which posits interspecies collaboration as the best survival strategy in an unstable environment. The curators – Castello di Rivoli’s new director, Francesco Manacorda, and Marianna Vecellio – make connections between historical examples such as Giuseppe Penone’s ‘Alpi Marittime’ series (1968), where the artist altered the growth paths of trees in the forests of Garessio through braiding, clamping and wrapping, and Nour Mobarak’s recent series ‘Gods’ Facsimiles’ (2023), for which she fed Trametes versicolor fungus woodchips inside sculptural moulds, leaving them to create soft, mottled forms, uncannily alive. ‘Mutual Aid’ also drafts new forms of logistical compromise of the kind that are likely to be more common in the years ahead: in the ecological spirit of the show, no artworks were shipped by air which will result in at least one work appearing on site after the opening, due to delays in sea transportation.

Mary Heilmann | Galleria d’Arte Moderna Torino (GAM) | 30 October – 16 March 2025

Mary Heilmann cracked open a space in American abstract painting in the 1970s, through which playful humour, and the pulse of a dancefloor beat flowed in. Grids in Heilmann’s hands become crazy-paved, webbed, trashy and lurid, with many of her paintings balancing the bleakness of black with the glow of bright neons or soft pinks. The chequered ground of her 2005 work Twist of Fate might signify a chess board, a disco scene or kitchen tiles dripping with red liquid. A grisly murder, the death of painting and blood on the dancefloor are all wryly summoned with economic precision. The exhibition at GAM features 60 works by the artist, marking Heilmann’s first major show in Italy, as well as her first retrospective since 2016, when she showed at Whitechapel. Each room is arranged around the concept of an emotional or chromatic ‘sound’, drawing energy from sites from the artist’s past: surfing spots, nightclubs and New York’s Chinatown.

‘Rabbit Inhabits the Moon’| Museo d’Arte Orientale (MAO) | 19 October – 23 March 2025

Nam June Paik is the central figure of this softly glowing exhibition at MAO, staged on the 140^th anniversary of the bilateral treaty which made Italy one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with Korea. Paik’s eponymous 1996 sculptural installation, in which a wooden rabbit watches an image of the moon on a television, is the centre of a constellation of artworks, positioning his restlessly inventive work in both a Korean and a wider Asian context. Installed on glimmering silver floors, the show brings together objects and artworks from across several centuries, deepening the central themes of Paik’s work: networks, planetary mapping, performance and mythology. Highlights include an exquisite Japanese men’s haori jacket from the 1930s, a plain garment of black silk crepe with a decorative lining depicting rabbits grinding rice to prepare mochi on the moon, and a large porcelain Moon jar vase made by Dae-sup Kwon.

Salvo / Pista 500: Chalisee Naamani & Monica Bonvicini |Pinacoteca Agnelli | 1 November – 25 May 2025 / 2024 – ongoing

Arriving in Turin from Sicily in 1956, Salvo became one of arte povera’s most conceptual artists, creating spare works that made use of light, time and language. For example, a marble tablet made by the artist in 1972 that reads ‘Salvo è vivo’ on one side, was, as per his instructions, turned over to reveal the words ‘Salvo è morto’ after his death in 2015. After his turn to painting in 1973, to the consternation of certain supporters, he began to create fantastical landscapes populated by buildings with lozenge-like forms, which appear lit from within by ultraviolet light. His exhibition at Pinacoteca Agnelli, the former site of the city’s FIAT factory, features more than 180 of the artist’s works, and attempts to reveal as many continuities as breaks across his two periods. Also debuting during Artissima are two new contributions to the Pista 500, a sculpture park on the factory’s famed test track, located on the building’s roof. Monica Bonvicini has created a neon sculpture titled Come Run With Me (2024) on one of the track’s parabolic curves, while Chalisée Naamani’s new site-specific work, My Mother Was My First Country (2024), engages with the political messaging of billboards in public space. 

Chez Paint it Black | Paint it Black | 24 October – 3 November

Regular visitors to Artissima often comment excitedly on the fair’s coincidence with truffle season, and Piedmont’s inventive, elaborate cuisine. Drawing connections between food and art this year is Chez Paint it Black, a collaboration with Turin-based artist Pieter Vermeersch and a local art bookstore, which has been transformed into a restaurant. The décor, furniture, tableware and menu have all been made by a combination of local and international artists. An excerpt from Natalia Ginzburg’s masterpiece Family Lexicon (1963) in which the writer’s father eats slightly spoiled pears, has inspired one dessert on the menu – Poached Pear with Marsala and Pepper – while Danai Anesiadou has contributed another: a caffeinated ice cream concoction called ‘No sleep till Thessaloniki’, which she describes on the menu as ‘meant for those whose night is still young.’ On the walls hang works by many artists with connections to Northern Italy, including Beatrice Bonino, Georgio Griffa, Lorenza Longhi, Cally Spooner and Davide Stucchi. Tables for dinner will be hard to come by, but a busy set of talks and public programmes provide many opportunities to visit.

_{Main image: Salvo, Al bar Sport, 1981, oil on board mounted on panel, 73 × 104 cm. Courtesy: private collection, Berlin}