ART AND CULTURE

Torino is a city that is accustomed to beauty: from the extraordinary Baroque and Liberty style buildings to such historic masterpieces as da Vinci’s “Self Portrait in Red Chalk” preserved at the Biblioteca Reale (Royal Library); from the 15 Royal Residences declared World Heritage Sites by Unesco, the very central and newly renovated Palazzo Madama and the Venaria Reale which testify to the splendour of the House of Savoy to the Museo Egizio (Egyptian Museum) , the most important museum in the world after the one in Cairo.
A boundless artistic panorama to discover and experience in the city’s more than 40 museums among which the new MAO (Museum of Oriental Art), an exhibit dedicated to the art and culture of Asian countries hosted in the splendid 17th century Palazzo Mazzonis and the new MuseoTorino, which opened in the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italy’sUnion.
MuseoTorino is an innovative project with a virtual and real museum at the same time: unique in the National and European scene, in terms of how it was conceived and created, and also in terms of how it will be developed. Designed to collect, conserve and communicate knowledge about the city, its collection is made up from the city itself:
In this sense MuseoTorino is designed as a spread-out museum, made up of locations and spaces in the city and by the network of museums that contain the testimonies of the city’s history.
This Museo Regionale di Scienze naturali - MRSN (Regional Natural History Museum) is divided into the following sections: botany, entomology, mineralogy-petrography-geology, palaeontology, zoology and didacticism, and also has about a thousand square metres of exhibition space which hosts a variety of interesting exhibitions throughout the year, both temporary and permanent (Lo spettacolo della natura, Mineralia, Vi.Vi.Alp., Storico Museo di Zoologia, L'Arca).
But the wealth of tradition has not prevented the city and its artists from looking forward, searching for new forms of expression. Today, Torino is recognized as one of Europe’s most important Contemporary Art capitals, thanks to a fabric that is interwoven with public and private associations, collections and foundations, museums and galleries, events and exhibits as well as a history of experimentation and research that ranges from the exuberance of the Futurists to Felice Casorati, from Situationist International to Arte Povera, from Food Art to leading contemporary artistic avant-garde.
GAM (Gallery of Modern Art), the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea del Castello di Rivoli (Museum of Contemporary Art at Castello di Rivoli) and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo are essential stops of the International circuit of new forms of expression . .