With the largest acquisition budget of the past thirteen years, the Fondazione Arte CRT – the art-oriented entity of Fondazione CRT, celebrating its 25th anniversary this year – once again reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the galleries at Artissima by acquiring 26 new works by 11 artists during the 2025 edition, all destined for public enjoyment. Important works by John Giorno, Cian Dayrit, Majd Abdel Hamid, John Menick, Felix Shumba, and Valentina Furian will enter the permanent collection of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, while those by David Schutter, Simon Callery, Alessandro Pessoli, Marco Cingolani, and Franciszka and Stefan Themerson will be added to the collection of the GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino.

For twenty-five years, Fondazione Arte CRT has been one of the main partners of Artissima, the international contemporary art fair in Turin, which it supports through various initiatives—especially the acquisition campaign. This collaboration stems from the conviction that Artissima offers the city a unique opportunity to consolidate and project its role on the international art scene.

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, the Foundation has further strengthened this partnership by increasing the historic acquisition fund from €280,000 in 2024 to €300,000—the highest amount in the last thirteen years—confirming its continued commitment to investing in contemporary art and in the shared cultural heritage of Turin and its region.

“Fondazione Arte CRT, which operates on behalf of Fondazione CRT, is proud to reaffirm its strong support for Artissima, Italy’s leading contemporary art fair and one of the most recognized internationally,” said Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President of Fondazione Arte CRT. “To mark our 25th anniversary, we decided to further strengthen this bond by increasing our acquisitions fund to €300,000 — the most substantial allocation in recent years — to concretely support the work of the galleries and artists exhibiting at the fair. Thanks to the invaluable contribution of our Scientific Committee, the acquired works will enter the collections of GAM and Castello di Rivoli, enriching two extraordinary public art heritages and reinforcing Turin’s role as a capital of contemporary art.”

Through its acquisitions, the Foundation supports galleries and artists, helping to build one of the most prestigious collections of contemporary art in Italy today: over 950 works ranging from painting to sculpture, video to photography, large-scale installations to NFTs, by about 380 artists, representing a total investment of more than €42 million. True to its mission, all works become immediately accessible to the public and to the two museums for exhibitions and loans, enabling Castello di Rivoli and GAM to constantly renew their displays and maintain an active dialogue with the international art community.

As in recent years, the Foundation’s Scientific Committee attended Artissima for the third time, represented in 2025 by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries, London), Susanne Pfeffer (Director, Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt), and Vicente Todolí (Artistic Director, Fondazione Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan); Manuel Segade Lodeiro (Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid) and Suhanya Raffel (Director, M+ Museum, Hong Kong) contributed remotely.

A long-standing advisory body to the Foundation on acquisitions, the Committee collaborated closely with the Directors and Chief Curators of Castello di Rivoli and GAM to select works that further enrich the artistic heritage of both museums—centers of excellence in Piedmont and key institutions for engaging diverse audiences on local, national, and international levels.

Regarding this year’s acquisitions, the Scientific Committee stated:

“This is a very special moment in Turin, a city of art that Artissima brings to life alongside the exhibitions of its many cultural institutions. This year marks important anniversaries for several of them—including Fondazione Arte CRT, celebrating its 25th year. It’s a dynamic moment, because, to paraphrase Italo Calvino, in Turin one can write, as past and future coexist in the present with a force that elsewhere is rare. You can feel this especially at Artissima, through its curated sections, where pioneering artists and galleries express this attitude. In an age overflowing with information but also amnesia, we must ‘protest against the obvious.’ For this reason, Artissima presents works by pioneering, sometimes forgotten artists who deserve to be rediscovered and reread. As Erwin Panofsky said, ‘the future is sometimes invented with fragments of the past.’ Hence the need to preserve memory while supporting emerging artists—because the history of the past also anticipates the future. It’s striking to see in Turin the number of directors, curators, and art professionals gathering these days. Turin is always worth the trip. As Alighiero Boetti said, ‘Art brings sun and light to Turin.’”

Works acquired for the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea

“Poetry as a space of continuous creative elaboration (John Giorno); the utopia of hyper-technology and its failure (John Menick); the tension between vision, control, and vulnerability (Valentina Furian); line and color as tools for processing loss and mourning (Majd Abdel Hamid); the use of cartography to confront the trauma of colonial legacy (Cian Dayrit); and the invention of techniques as a form of resistance to extractivist politics (Felix Shumba). This selection brings together artists whose works tackle the complexity of the present and the fragility of the human condition. They are politically and socially charged pieces, yet they maintain a poetic dimension, embracing slow gestures where individual creativity becomes a space of freedom and resistance,” said Francesco Manacorda, Director of Castello di Rivoli.

Selected works include:

• Majd Abdel Hamid, Muscle Memory III (2022) – Single-channel HD video, color, 18’47” – Ed. 3/3 + 2 A.P.

• Majd Abdel Hamid, Muscle Memory Composition (2022) – Cotton thread on fabric, 40.5 × 38.5 cm

• Cian Dayrit, Natural Histories of Struggle: For Land (2021) – Objects, embroidery, images, and digital prints on fabric – 125 × 185 cm

• John Giorno, DIAL-A-POEM Push Button Edition (1968–2019) – Telephone and computer with 282 recorded poems by 132 poets – Ed. 9/20 + 5 A.P.

• Valentina Furian, Eclissi (2024) – Two-channel silent color video, 1’ – Ed. 2/3 + 1 A.P.

• John Menick, Telharmonium (2025) – Generative 4K video, generative audio score, custom software, economic algorithm, computer hardware – Ed. 5 + 2 A.P.

• Felix Shumba, Oracle 1–5 (2024) – Charcoal on paper, 72 × 70 cm each

Works acquired for the GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino

“I’m very pleased that the GAM collection is being enriched with works by artists who, though from diverse backgrounds, maintain a deep connection with Italian and European art history. The acquisitions of David Schutter, Simon Callery, Alessandro Pessoli, Marco Cingolani, and the duo Franciszka and Stefan Themerson reflect the museum’s commitment to supporting artistic research that transcends geographical and temporal boundaries, yet finds in Italy an ideal point of reference. These works engage with both the history and contemporaneity of painting and the moving image, reinforcing GAM’s mission to build a living collection that mirrors the complexity and vitality of today’s art—through history as well,” said Chiara Bertola, Director of GAM.

Selected works include:

• Simon Callery, Stura (2021) – Canvas, tempera, pencil, thread, stainless steel, wood – 169.3 × 165 × 23 cm

• Marco Cingolani, Conferenza stampa (1993) – Oil on canvas – 185 × 185 cm

• Alessandro Pessoli, Teenager Faces Series (2024) – Acrylic on plastic sheets – 45.5 × 30.5 cm – Unique piece

• David Schutter, ANB C 1.03 series (2024) – 4 oil-on-canvas paintings, 60 × 50 cm each

• Franciszka and Stefan Themerson, The Eye and The Ear (1945) – 33 mm color film, 10 min – Ed. 5 + 2 A.P.