In Turin, an exhibition on the roof of the Lingotto, on the runway where FIATs were tested

On May 27, Pista 500, an art project of Pinacoteca Agnelli that brings contemporary art to the rooftop of Lingotto, kicks off in Turin. The Pinacoteca’s programming thus extends outside the museum’s spaces, giving rise to an outdoor art project with a series of artistic and environmental installations that dialogue with the architecture, landscape and symbols of an emblematic place in Turin. The historic racetrack used by the FIAT factory to test cars on the roof of the Lingotto and its access ramp are thus opened to the public through an art project that relates to the new roof garden created by FIAT.

Pista 500 is the first edition of a project that will be repeated. This edition will feature seven contemporary artists from the international scene: Nina Beier, VALIE EXPORT, Sylvie Fleury, Shilpa Gupta, Louise Lawler, Mark Leckey, and Cally Spooner. Some installations engage with the Lingotto’s legacy to explore the social, cultural and political implications of its transformation. Other works initiate a reflection on the monument, confronting the tradition of art history and the symbols still present in the public spaces of our cities. Finally, some of the works on display complicate traditionally masculine imaginaries related to the factory and the automobile, bringing plural perspectives to a place historically marked by iconographies and narratives made by men.

The Runway 500 stands 28 meters high and has been converted into a green lung, as it has more than 40,000 plants of more than 300 different native species. FIAT’s reconversion project, designed by Camerana&Partners Studio, is intended to be a rooftop journey into greenery, combined with an exclusive route dedicated to the test drive of FIAT’s iconic New 500 electric car. The new rooftop garden will be regularly enriched with installations designed specifically by international artists for its spaces. The art project on the Runway 500 is designed to expand the experience of a symbolic place in the city to also make it a cultural destination.

The interventions on the runway embrace different languages of sculpture: audio or environmental installations, light or sound works, video or expanded cinema interventions, sculptures that experiment with urban materials, projects that are functional to the needs of those crossing the runway or related to industrial architecture. The works, which are interactive and engaging, invite the public of the Runway 500 to reflect on what public space means today, and what stories and monuments we want to inhabit it with. They confront the legacy of the factory, to explore the social, cultural and political implications of its transformation, or enter into dialogue with the natural and urban landscape surrounding the building, bringing out the tension between natural and artificial that characterizes it.

The program aims to offer plural perspectives on the idea of public art through recontextualized pioneering works, iconic contemporary projects, new site-specific commissions to internationally prominent artists, and a focus on emerging practices. Individual projects are designed to be inaugurated gradually over the next three years, according to an ever-changing exhibition itinerary. A new selection of projects will already be inaugurated in October 2022. The imaginaries proposed by the sculptures dialogue with the reconversion of the Lingotto’s industrial archaeology from a closed circuit to an open street, from a place of production to a space to be inhabited together. The idea is that of an open-air exhibition that develops in time as well as in space, with ever-changing dialogues between the works on display, the place that hosts them and the public they address.

Image: the roof of the Lingotto. Photo by Mybosswas

In Turin, an exhibition on the roof of the Lingotto, on the runway where FIATs were tested

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