On the occasion of Artissima 2025, the MAO Museum of Oriental Art in Turin presents from Nov. 1, 2025, the third edition of Contemporary Declinations, the program of artist residencies and site-specific commissions that invites contemporary artists to dialogue with the museum’s collection and evolving identity. The project proposes new readings of museum holdings and restores voice to works that have long remained “silent” through the gaze of artists, curators and professionals from three continents. A journey of reinterpretation and transformation that renews the public’s experience and redefines the relationship between past and present.
Directors and artists Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam present asound installation that reinterprets the precious collection of fragments from Densatil Monastery in central Tibet. Famous for its extraordinary reliquaries decorated with Buddhist bas-reliefs and sculptures, the monastery-founded in 1198 and the center of the Phagmo Drupa dynasty-was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and its treasures dispersed among museums and private collections around the world. After nearly two decades of silence in the museum’s halls, these fragments regain a voice through the narration of Virūḍhaka, the Guardian King of the South, one of the four statues that once watched over the cardinal points of Densatil’s stupas. The work interweaves memory and spirituality, questioning the fate of these relics and their symbolic return to their place of origin.
Korean artist Sunmin Park presents the video installation Pale Pink Universe and a new series of drawings that investigate the relationship between nature and human intervention, observed through agriculture and winemaking. The work is the result of a collaboration between MAO and Artisti per Frescobaldi, and is the outcome of the artist’s residency at the Tenuta di CastelGiocondo in Montalcino, promoted and supported by Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi as part of the 7th edition of Artisti per Frescobaldi, a patronage project conceived by Tiziana Frescobaldi and curated by Ludovico Pratesi. The video alternates microscopic images and natural landscapes in a visual flow accompanied by Bojan Vuletic’s music and the artist’s voice reciting, in English, a sonnet by medieval poet Dino Frescobaldi. The three drawings Pale Pink Universe - Bouquet Giocondo d02, d03 and d04 dialogue with funerary artifacts from ancient China and will become part of MAO’s permanent collections.
With a new site-specific installation, Francesco Simeti concludes the journey begun at MAO with the first edition of Contemporary Declinations. The work, composed of wallpaper, fabric elements and luminous glass objects, takes visitors on a journey through the cultural routes of the ancient Silk Roads, reread as a metaphor for Orientalist appropriations and misunderstandings of Western history. General Description (A Historical Map of the Other) draws on a vast iconographic repertoire of artifacts, sculptures, prints and paintings that document the representation of the “other” in European taste, rendering an exoticized and judged image of it. The luminous objects, created in collaboration with WonderGlass, evoke suspended pagodas and interweave the Murano tradition of blown glass with contemporary casting techniques, creating a poetic and visionary landscape. The work becomes part of MAO’s permanent collections.
To mark the opening of the exhibition, the MAO is hosting the performance Tape Music by Taiwanese artist Lin Chi-Wei, which has already been presented at institutions such as the Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, and the Venice and Shanghai Biennales. Part of the Yue Ji 樂記 project, curated by Freya Chou, the work explores themes of loss, consolation and celebration related to mourning, in dialogue with the museum’s collection of Chinese funerary and ritual objects. The performance, scheduled at 6:30 p.m. with two repeats at 7:15 and 8 p.m., engages the audience in a collective reading of sound scores inscribed on a long roll of paper, generating a harmonious, participatory chorus. The project also includes a limited-edition vinyl recording of the performance and two tracks by James Hoff and dj sniff, accompanied by a booklet with texts by the artists and the curator. Yue Ji 樂記 is produced with the support of and in collaboration with the Taipei Representative Office in Italy.
On Saturday, November 1, the single reduced fare is 12 euros. The fare is also valid for Abbonamento Musei holders. From Nov. 2, the works will be visible by purchasing a ticket to the permanent collections.
Image: Francesco Simeti, General Description (A Historical Map of the Other), detail (2025). Photo by Alessandro Muner, MAO Turin
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| Contemporary Declinations, a program of artist residencies and new contemporary installations, returns to MAO Turin |
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