Sarah Cosulich on How to Build a Museum for the Future

As director of Pinacoteca Agnelli, housed atop Turin’s Lingotto factory, Sarah Cosulich wants to reshape how art institutions engage with the public. Ahead of three exhibition openings this week, she speaks with senior editor Vanessa Peterson about emotion as a curatorial tool, the politics of collaboration and reimagining the museum and the city as a ‘think tank for new institutional methodologies’. 

Vanessa Peterson Pinacoteca Agnelli is opening three exhibitions this week, tied to Artissima and Turin Art Week more generally. I’d love to hear more about how these presentations reflect the institution’s broader mission and identity.

Sarah Cosulich Given that our institution features a historic permanent collection which actively interacts with a contemporary mission, I would say that our identity is unique and it and presents us with a great opportunity. Our goal is to allow the public to consider the present as history in the making. For example, in our Alice Neel exhibition – the first retrospective in Italy – her work acquires an even stronger meaning if read in connection to the paintings by Manet, Modigliani and Renoir, where, as we know, women are generally passive subjects of the male gaze. But this is just an example of the many new readings that this constant dialogue with art history allows for.

Pinacoteca Agnelli is located in a former factory [the Lingotto, built in 1923 as the Fiat factory]: a site of industrialization and labour now turned into a multipurpose building with a shopping centre, cinemas and hotels. At first, it seemed an unlikely place for an art museum, but I soon realized its potential – especially seeing the enthusiasm of artists upon coming here.

Our identity lies in connecting the history of the building, a symbol of industrial archaeology and of Turin’s past, with the present and its new dynamics. The building itself, and our collection, remain at the heart of our programme. We want visitors to understand the dialogue between past and present, between the city’s industrial legacy and the ways contemporary art interacts with it. The history of the Lingotto, with its connection to production and labour, forms an invisible thread running through our exhibitions.

VP You’ve described the museum as international in both spirit and focus. How does that play out in your programming and audiences?

SC Our audience is half international and half Italian. While we value our site-specificity and unique identity, we think internationally in the way we shape our programme and connect to the wider art world. Our shows and projects are produced internally and, thanks to the collaboration and dialogue with other museums, they sometimes tour. It happened with our exhibition dedicated to Lee Lozano that travelled to the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris, and it will happen more often in the future. I believe that travelling shows are an act of responsibility towards the artists and the public, and also of sustainability.

Our location gives us a special opportunity to attract visitors who might not otherwise engage with art. The museum’s architecture enables a gradual encounter – from the Pista 500, the rooftop art walk [which occupies the former Fiat test track on the factory roof], to installations in the garden and the panoramic view of the city. That openness creates opportunities that are rare in larger, more traditional institutions.

The test track has existed since the 1920s, but we only recently opened it to the public. Visitors who had seen it from afar for years can now access it directly, and that act of climbing up – seeing the mountains and skyline – gives a new, elevated perspective on Turin itself. It recalibrates how people perceive the city and situates art within a lived, urban experience rather than as a separate, isolated encounter. Increasingly, we notice that people are curious to enter the museum – a space that, for many, once felt intimidating. The roof used to be a closed circuit; now it’s an open walkable and livable street.

Artists love this legacy, its context and implications. We turn the former self-sufficiency and fast pace of the former factory engines into a ‘slow’ experience with art.

VP Could you tell me more about the Pista 500 Prize, developed in collaboration with Artissima, and the upcoming commissioned project?

SC Pista 500 is our outdoor programme of commissioned projects by international artists. It’s designed to engage with the architecture of the Lingotto and with the surrounding urban landscape, and to rethink what a sculpture or even a monument can be today. We embrace different languages – environmental installations, sound works, expanded cinema. With Luigi Fassi, director of Artissima – whose building you can actually see from our roof – we have created a joint prize, awarded to an artist represented at the fair, which gives them the opportunity to develop a new project for the Pista billboard on the roof the following year.

Last year, Paul Pfeiffer received the award, chosen by a panel of curators and museum directors. His project evolved into something far more ambitious. Fascinated by Turin’s and the Lingotto’s legacy, he immediately connected it to his interest in performance, speed, production, technology and mass consumption. His exploration led to an immersive sound installation created in collaboration with the city’s famous Juventus Football Club, who gave him access to record an important match in September.

The resulting work stages a dialogue between fans, exploring mass dynamics, identity and collective emotion. It repositions these in a new context, allowing us to reimagine the Lingotto as a cultural site. Projects like these show that the museum is not only a place for exhibiting art but also a laboratory for rethinking how art interacts with public life.

VP From a curatorial and philosophical standpoint, how do you see the institution addressing historical absences – particularly women’s representation in art history?

SC That’s a crucial question and our greatest challenge. We are aware of how our great permanent collection can offer a lot of opportunities also in its absences. We don’t shy away from being provocative; we welcome institutional critique.

This year, Piotr Uklański’s project, ‘Faux Amis’, embodies that approach as he engages with our entire permanent collection. Placing his paintings, sculptures and installations in dialogue our historic masterpieces, he creates ‘false friends’: seemingly superficial connections that reveal deeper observations about issues such as colonialism, orientalism and the male gaze. For instance, we have a painting by Édouard Manet once titled La Négresse [1862], now rightly renamed Laure. Piotr’s work responds to such histories, overturning assumptions and prompting new perspectives.

Similarly, our exhibition of Alice Neel radically repositions portraiture in relation to our historic collection. Her focus on diversity, marginalized subjects and the female gaze challenges traditional narratives. Everything connects: it’s about questioning norms, rethinking spectacle and inviting critical awareness.

VP You’ve been director since 2021. What have you learned personally from the experience, and how do you see the future of Turin’s contemporary art landscape?

SC I’ve learned to love Turin deeply – with its mysteries and potential. My international background has been enriched by being able to work across different institutions and has shaped me to focus on identity as the foundation for growth. I believe artworks are life-changing and my commitment is to allow them to reach the public. I love seeing the audience grow – not just in numbers, but in enthusiasm and diversity. Emotion is central to art and to our work and institutions should spark emotion. Always remembering that as directors and curators, we’re not the protagonists – we serve the artists and the artworks. They are our mission. We should be the best conductors of their energy.

VP What do you hope the next five years look like for the institution?

SC We can say that our museum is multidisciplinary, attracting people through architecture, the garden, the view and often using that interest as an entry point into art. I wish to strengthen points of contacts while maintaining a radical, significant programme of exhibitions with a strong identity. We’ve also begun an alliance among Turin’s institutions that I believe will grow in the coming years and make us grow, with Artissima, but also with Torino’s main contemporary art institutions, such as Castello di Rivoli, Fondazione Torino Musei and important private foundations. Together we’re reflecting on the challenges of presenting art today: resources, sustainability, logistics. By collaborating, we can strengthen Torino's cultural offer and its visibility while cutting costs: we can share services – from press outreach to shipping and storage – making exhibition-making more sustainable while preserving our individual autonomy. Today this kind of cooperation is a way to act constructively in a changing world. I see Turin as a think tank for new institutional methodologies.

Alice Neel’s ‘I Am the Century’ and Piotr Uklański’s ‘Faux Amis’ will be on view at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, from 31 October to 6 April 2026. Paul Pfeiffer’s ‘Vitruvian Figure (Juventus)’ will also be on view at Pinacoteca Agnelli’s Pista 500 from 31 October

_{Main image: Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin. Courtesy: Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin; photograph: Evergreen Design House}