For three days,Turin becomes the center of international debate on the evolution of contemporary art museums. From November 28-30, 2025, in fact, the city will host the 57th Annual Conference of CIMAM - International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art. The theme of the conference, which will be hosted by the OGR in Turin, was announced this morning. The title will be Enduring Game: Expanding New Models of Museum Making, and the meeting will be guided by the motto " Of Necessity Virtue." The event, long awaited and made all the more significant by its return to Italy after nearly half a century-the last Italian edition was held in 1976, between Bologna and Prato-is shaping up to be one of the most important moments for discussion on the present and future of contemporary cultural institutions.
Organized by CIMAM with the support of Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and Fondazione CRT, and curated by the Content Committee in collaboration with Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Fondazione Torino Musei and Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, the conference will open, as mentioned, in the spaces of OGR Turin, Fondazione CRT’s cultural and innovation center. The active involvement of Turin’s leading institutions underscores the city’s role as a cultural hub and laboratory of ideas at the European level.
The theme chosen for this edition focuses on how museums can reinvent themselves in the face of a global context marked by profound challenges: funding cuts, political instability, social rifts and ecological crises. Within this framework, the motto “Of necessity virtue” is not just a rhetorical exhortation, but a true statement of intent: museums must not passively adapt to difficulties, but must respond with creativity, redefining their public, social and educational function. The museum, today more than ever, is called upon to be an engine of meaning and a generator of hope, a space of cultural citizenship and a tool of collective resilience.
The conference program is designed to stimulate critical and participatory engagement, alternating keynote speeches, artistic performances, thought labs and moments of collective reflection. Each day will begin with a keynote speech and artistic intervention, followed by a 40-minute keynote and performance acts capable of stimulating participants’ minds and bodies. At the heart of the experience will be small group work sessions, intended not as simple discussions but as actual workshops, where abstract visions and operational analysis, theoretical reflections and concrete strategies are intertwined.
The first day, entitled Doing Less vs. Doing Differently, will be devoted to questioning traditional paradigms, proposing a radical reflection on the very meaning of “museum making.” It will discuss a “recalibration” of activities, where quantity gives way to quality, and “doing less” becomes an opportunity to rethink priorities, languages and working methods. Activities will be facilitated by guest moderators, with the aim of building a shared vocabulary for dealing with institutional transformation.
The second day, Mapping Desires, will feature a series of short presentations focused on pragmatic aspirations. Far from unrealizable idealisms, participants will be invited to design critical, sustainable and resilient museum models capable of responding concretely to the tensions of the present. The challenge is to imagine museums that are not just containers of works, but enabling platforms for communities.
The third day, Transactions and Transmissions. Tactics of Togetherness, will instead focus on the dialogue between institutions and the public. What are museums really transmitting? How informed and engaged are audiences? And how can the museum become a place of co-production and expanded relationality? The idea of “transaction” is reinterpreted here not only as an information exchange, but as a generative process of meaning and collaboration, across institutional and hierarchical boundaries. The ultimate goal is to build a common language to address emerging paradigms and reaffirm the value of the museum as a civic garrison.
At the end of each day there will be a concluding session to synthesize the insights that have emerged, compare divergent perspectives and chart future trajectories. In a time of growing inattention to culture, the voice of the museum stands as a bulwark of awareness, freedom and hope.
The conference will be followed by a post-event tour that will take participants on Dec. 1 and 2 to some of the most significant places for contemporary art in Italy. On December 1 they will visit the Langhe, an area known for its wines and truffles, but increasingly active on the artistic front as well. The hills of Piedmont have been transformed into a veritable open-air museum, where art and landscape come together: you can admire a multicolored mural by Liam Gillick and Hito Steyerl, an aluminum sculpture by Jean-Marie Appriou among the rows of Roddino and Neviglie, the famous Barolo Chapel reinterpreted by Sol LeWitt and David Tremlett, and the art parks of Castelnuovo Calcea, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Camo, with works by artists such as Carsten Höller, Marguerite Humeau, Ugo Nespolo and Emanuele Luzzati. The tour also includes guided tours with an art historian, wine tastings and a dinner in Alba.
The next day, Dec. 2, the group will travel to Milan to explore iconic Italian contemporary art spaces such as the Fondazione Prada, Mudec and Hangar Bicocca, thus completing a cultural immersion tour that connects cities and landscapes, centers and peripheries, history and experimentation.
The conference’s Content Committee, led by Chus Martínez, director of the Art Gender Nature Institute in Basel, is composed of leading international figures: Chiara Bertola (GAM Turin), Bernardo Follini (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo), Leevi Haapala (Helsinki University of the Arts), Malgorzata Ludwisiak (Warsaw), Francesco Manacorda (Castello di Rivoli), Victoria Noorthoorn (Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires), Davide Quadrio (MAO Turin) and Kamini Sawhney (BlrHubba, Bangalore). A composite and plural team, reflecting CIMAM’s global vocation and its ability to build cultural bridges.
Founded in 1962, CIMAM is an international platform that brings together modern and contemporary art museum professionals. Through conferences, publications and programs, it promotes museum excellence and innovation in the field, fostering dialogue and collaboration globally.
All program and registration information is available on the event’s official website: https://cimam.org/cimam-annual-conference/annual-conference-2025-torino/
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| In Turin this fall, the future of museums will be discussed: at OGR, CIMAM's annual conference |
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