Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster presents PISTARAMA , a work specially designed for the northern parabolic curve of Pista 500 which represents the first panorama that Gonzalez-Foerster creates outdoors and the first of monumental size, with a total length of over 150 metres.

The work consists of an XXL collage, which takes its cue from the political and cultural history of Turin and extends to episodes and figures linked to struggles for social claims that span a multiplicity of different times and geographies . Through the presence of historical and fictional characters, works of art, documents, photographs, cinematographic references and visions of the artist, the project reflects on the way in which collective bodies claim the space of cities, starting from two fundamental modalities: the practice of writing in public space and the shared movement of bodies marching in demonstration. The work thus recounts and celebrates the way in which the union of people and their collective action can become agents of social change and at the same time aspires to be a tool for confronting history, including that of the former Lingotto factory which houses the Pinacoteca.

Against the Run (2023) is a new commission created by the artist for Pista 500. A clock apparently similar to those found in city streets stands out from one of the garden flowerbeds. At first glance, its hands appear to go backwards, reversing the clock mechanism and thus the linearity of time. In truth, it is the dial of the clock that moves, while the hands continue to mark the exact time. Through this small deception of our perception, Kwade opens up a reflection on the dependence of our daily lives on an arbitrary convention such as that of time. The project is linked to the history of the Lingotto factory. The design of Against the Run is in fact inspired by the clock model historically used in FIAT factories, thus evoking the central role that the measurement of time had in the factory, the primary index for establishing the productivity of those who worked inside it. The work seems to recall the famous "hand strike" of 1920, when, in opposition to the application of summer time, the workers of FIAT Brevetti of Turin decided to turn back the hands of all the clocks in the factory by an hour. . That of the workers was a small action, which however was confronted with an enormous rule, that of coordinated universal time - which, in the case of Italy, was historically established precisely in the city of Turin. In fact, it is from here that, until 2016, the codified time signal was transmitted, i.e. the famous trill emitted by RAI to signal the striking of each hour. In the gesture of the workers of a hundred years ago, as in Kwade's work today, the questioning of the measure on which our days are based unmasks the lability of the modern concept of progress and the human fragility in the face of its defeat.

Die Mimik der Tethys (The Expressions of Tethys) consists of a buoy floating at high altitude in the center of the iconic helical ramp of the former FIAT factory in Lingotto. Its movement, which evokes that caused by the waves, is achieved through a sophisticated engineering system, which connects Die Mimik der Tethys to a sister buoy located off the Atlantic Ocean. The original buoy continuously transmits motion data via satellite to its double, and the information drives eight electric motors and rope winches, which precisely reproduce, in real time, its motion. The work thus becomes a sort of hypnotic machine, a surreal presence that leads one to imagine that the monumental space of the ramp could contain the ocean waves. The work also seems to stage a legend linked to the architecture of the Lingotto, which due to its mammoth shape and scale was in the past defined as "the transatlantic". The title is inspired by the figure of Thetis, goddess of the sea in Greek mythology, daughter of the sky (Uranus) and the earth (Gaea). The literary inspiration that this personification brings with it recalls a romantic conception of the sea, linked to the aesthetic and emotional experience of humanity faced with the sublime grandeur of nature. Von Bismarck wants us to confront precisely our understanding of the concept of nature, placing emphasis on the fact that it is not an innate conception, but a culturally constructed one. The majestic and indomitable ocean of the romantic tradition clashes with the idea of the sea we know, today at the center of urgent geopolitical issues: the one whose rising is a symptom of the serious contemporary climate crisis, the one where thousands of people lose their lives on the migratory routes . Die Mimik der Tethys is therefore a presence with a strong poetic charge, but also a direct witness of our restless times.

In close dialogue with the Form Form SuperForm exhibition, presented on the third floor of the Pinacoteca Agnelli, Thomas Bayrle has created a new sculpture entitled Flamingo on Track 500. This road module, which visually crosses the Alpine chain in the background, appears as a potential extension of the circuit on the Lingotto roof. It is a road that intertwines another road and underlines the interconnectivity of the flows of people, goods and products that circulate in our present. The work recalls the conveyor belts of the assembly line of the former FIAT factory, a symbolic place of modernity that Bayrle had already looked to as a source of inspiration in the 1970s. For years this factory, an avant-garde example, has mass-produced cars, new contemporary icons that have become expressions of an unprecedented mass desire. Innervating the urban landscape, streets act as conveyor belts for goods and people and also become metaphors for the body and its blood vessels, neural connections and computational thinking. In an infinite loop, Flamingo rises like a rollercoaster of ambition, production and unstoppable progress, chronicling the way capitalism shapes cities.

The photograph Girls in Car (2005) is part of a series of four images in which Aliabadi documented the social phenomenon of evenings spent in the car, characteristic of the young urban middle class in Iran in the 2000s. Theranese youth, limited in socializing with the opposite gender in public space, used car travel as a pretext to interact, causing massive traffic jams on the streets of the north of the city. The photograph, like the others in the series, portrays a group of friends who, dressed and made up as if for an evening out, participate in this sort of remote motorized choreography. Some of the girls smile at Aliabadi's camera, others who are more shy look at her in amazement. In the artist's words "every time my flash went off on the street I attracted a lot of attention. The girls in the car were very curious and we would start a long friendly conversation about why I was taking the photos, what I would do with them, where they would be published, etc. ". The project proposes an intimate and timely reflection on unexpected forms of sociality and on the preconceptions that influence the gaze of most people, especially in the case of contexts that go beyond the Eurocentric norm. "This image of women constrained by tradition and the hijab is nowhere near the reality here. They all had their music on and were chatting to each other between cars, giving glances and conversing with guys in other cars."

In the almost twenty years that separate us from the moment the photos were taken, Aliabadi's work has acquired many levels of complexity, becoming testimony to a precise historical moment within the long and complex history of female emancipation in Iran. Looking at this image today inevitably brings to mind the large protest movement that arose following the death under suspicious circumstances of Mahsa Amini, arrested by the religious police in Theran for incorrect use of the hijab in September 2022. Repressed with violence by the Iranian security forces , the demonstrations were the largest and most consistent in the country since 2009 and attracted great participation from the international community, which joined the Iranian population in protest with the common cry of "woman, life, freedom". A year after those events, faced with a battle for human rights that is still far from over, the billboard wants to act as an echo of Aliabadi's voice, to make forms of narration from yesterday that are fundamental for understanding the complexity of today.