What does it mean to make art in Turin today? How has the city’s art scene changed in recent years? What impact has the digital world had on the relationships between artists, curators, and gallerists? DIGITAL VISUAL is a widespread project that, every week in a different cultural venue, brings together two artists and a curator to explore the transformation of visual languages and relationships within the art system—between production, authorship, and distribution. An itinerant journey that engages places, voices, and generations to reflect the complexity of the contemporary visual system. A project by Quartz Studio, in collaboration with MAUTO – Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile, Fondazione Santagata, and the University of Turin.
- THE EXHIBITION
NEWS FROM THE NEAR FUTURE
30/10/2025 – 8/3/2026
Il MAUTO – Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile presents a new cultural project that definitively places the Museum within the circuit of contemporary art. The collaboration with the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, celebrating the Foundation’s thirtieth anniversary with the exhibition News from the Near Future, marks the first step in a multi-year project entitled Convergenze, which creates a dialogue between the automobile and modern and contemporary art.
MAUTO – Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile will host in its spaces – from Thursday, 30 October 2025 to Sunday, 8 March 2026 – the exhibition News from the Near Future, an extension of the project displayed at the Foundation’s headquarters in Via Modane, to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.
The exhibition represents the first step in a new design trajectory for MAUTO, inaugurating a cycle of collaborations with contemporary cultural institutions, in the spirit of a renewed, open and intersectional vision that characterizes the new energy of the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile. Conceived by the Museum’s Board and President Benedetto Camerana and led by Director Lorenza Bravetta, this vision defines the Museum as a platform for dialogue between disciplines and languages, combining its historical identity with a dynamic, relational and critical approach.
- TEMPORARY EXHIBITION
News from the Near Future
The collaboration with the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo – a key player in the cultural life of Turin and Italy, and among the most authoritative voices on the international contemporary art scene – marks the concrete start of this process. The project is founded on the deep understanding between two institutions sharing the desire to engage with the complexity of the present and to reinterpret their heritage through new narrative paradigms.
Between MAUTO and the Fondazione Sandretto, a visual, emotional and conceptual archive takes shape – non-chronological, built over time from the sensitivity of Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, through exhibitions, commissions, institutional collaborations, residencies, and educational and training projects. A mosaic of stories, experiences and research that, in dialogue with MAUTO’s history and identity, generates new perspectives and meanings.
- THE COLLECTION
Convergenze
Alongside the temporary exhibition News from the Near Future, a selection of works from the Sandretto Collection will be integrated into MAUTO’s permanent display, generating unexpected intersections between industrial objects and artistic imagery, between design, memory and imagination. The project, entitled Convergenze, is curated by art historian Giacinto Di Pietrantonio
Eight contemporary works spanning from 1998 – with the photographic work 100 cinesi by Paola Pivi – to Nudeltisch (Spaghetti painting) by Giulia Andreani in 2019. Also included are CREMASTER 2: The Ballad of Max Jensen, a photographic triptych by Matthew Barney; the video-installations La pista degli angeli by Grazia Toderi, Democracies by Artur Zmijewski and Untitled Version (I See a Darkness) by João Onofre; as well as Gummo V by Lara Favaretto and The Abc of racist Europe by Daniela Ortiz.
- ON DISPLAY
Artworks
On display are photographs, projects, documents, licenses, accessories, helmets, tracksuits, and trophies, as well as nine iconic racing and touring cars. Also featured are the 1940 SIMAT scooter -Count Trossi owned one of only 30 produced-, an aircraft model, an aeronautical engine, a cinemobile, and a boat.
The cars on display range from the 1935 Monaco Trossi – a futuristic prototype designed by Augusto Monaco in collaboration with Carlo Felice Trossi – to the 1938 Alfa Romeo GP Type 158, known as the “Alfetta“; from the 1931 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Monza to the revolutionary 1936 Maserati 6 CM racing single-seater; from the 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK to the 1942 Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS, onto which Trossi initially installed two headlights taken from his personal aircraft in place of the original central headlights; and from the 1932 Alfa Romeo Type B P3 to the rare 1934 Cattaneo Trossi, a fully functional miniature car. Finally, the 1932 Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 Zagato is exhibited – the car with which Trossi finished second in his first Mille Miglia that same year.
The section dedicated to boating features Mio Mao, a 7.2-metre mahogany runabout with a double cross-plating structure, built by the Baglietto shipyard between 1929 and 1930 for the Piaggio family.
A travelling cinema vehicle offers a glimpse into the era in which Trossi lived: the 1929 Fiat 521 Cinemobile. This rare example, built on a Fiat 521 chassis by Carrozzeria Fissore, was sent to Eritrea to serve as a mobile cinema during the Italian colonial period. Found years later, it still retains its original projector, which is now fully functional following meticulous restoration.
- SOUND
Sound Reconstruction of the Monaco - Trossi Engine
The installation recreates the sound of the legendary Monaco–Trossi engine, unheard since 1935, through a sophisticated audio reconstruction using cutting-edge neural synthesis techniques. The algorithmic sonification process, conceived and developed by MuseeX, combines a scientific and creative approach that integrates historical sources, engineering data, and generative models. The result is an immersive and realistic sound model that evokes the authentic voice of a car lost to time. Reliving the past through sound lies at the heart of MuseeX’s research: each project resurfaces what has been forgotten, hidden, or lost, transforming it into a soundscape that gives voice to memory.
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Acknowledgements
Carlo Felice Trossi. Unfinished Hero
Curated by Giordano Bruno Guerri
With Francesco Foppiano, Davide Lorenzone, Ilaria Pani
Artistic director Maurizio Cilli
Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile thanks all lenders:Andrea Ghisalberti, Lopresto Collection, Alex von Mòzer, STELLANTIS Europe SPA | HERITAGE (Museo Alfa Romeo), Mercedes-Benz Classic, Maserati Umberto Panini APS Collection, Museo Scooter&Lambretta, GAVS – Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici – Tourin Section, R.E. San Giorgi, Yacht Club Italiano
Photo credits: Fondazione Sella, Fotografia dall’Archivio, Zagari © The Spitzley Archive, Varagine.it Historical Photographic Archive on the City of Varazze
Videos: Archivio Luce Cinecittà
We express our gratitude to Maurizio Fracassi for his valuable support and generous donation, through which the Carlo Felice Trossi archive has has been incorporated into the collection of the MAUTO Documentation Centre.
Special thanks to Gianluigi Ricuperati.
Project partners: Banca Generali Private, MuseeX
- BEYOND THE EXHIBITION
The catalogue
- PARTNERSHIP
Partner
Under the patronage of
Supported by
In collaboration with
The initiative is part of the program
Download the Press Release.
- PROJECTS AND MEETINGS
Public Program
Talks, screenings and opportunities for discussion as a corollary to the temporary exhibitions.
The Public Program completes the MAUTO cultural schedule and broadens the discussion on the subject of cars and mobility. A program that explores different languages and transversal approaches, opening up to a contemporary and transmedia discussion.
STORIES, VISIONS, SOUNDS. A calendar of meetings that alternates between conversations, editorial presentations, projections, musical and performance events: stories that embrace art, design, literature and current affairs; visual explorations ranging from auteur films to artist videos and documentaries; sound proposals that move between musical genres, with authors and performers, ensembles and soloists.
Some of the scheduled meetings – all free and upon reservation – develop from the themes addressed by the temporary exhibitions and research activities of the Museum’s Conservation and Restoration Centre and Documentation Centre.
