Davide Quadrio on the MAO of Turin: the Museum as a Living Organism

During Artissima 2025, Davide Quadrio, Director of the Museum of Oriental Art of Turin (MAO), engaged in a conversation with Mara Sartore to discuss his vision and the first major monographic retrospective dedicated to the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. An art historian and curator with an extensive international career, Quadrio spent much of his professional life in Asia, where he founded BizArt and contributed to the development of the contemporary art scene in China. Since 2022, he has led the MAO with a perspective that intertwines research, participation, and an innovative dialogue between the ancient and the contemporary.

Davide Quadrio – Perhaps both. It is certainly an exceptional moment, characterised by deep mutual respect, affection, and support. We are very different personalities, yet we share a strong institutional sense: the awareness that the institution comes before individual ambitions. This principle is often forgotten, as if the museum were merely at the service of a director’s ego, when it is quite the opposite.

DQ – In reality, it was a combination of coincidences. Personally, I had no intention of returning to Italy. I had planned to remain based here while continuing to work mainly abroad. After a career largely spent in Asia – where I built both my professional and personal identity – the Covid pandemic disrupted everything. Four years of enforced pause opened new possibilities. In 2021, I was appointed director of the MAO, assuming the role in February 2022. I received immediate support from both the City and the Region, which believed in the renewal. I found a structure in need of redefining roles and priorities. Despite the initial difficulties, I was granted considerable freedom, allowing me to realise a coherent project whose results are now visible. The retrospective of Chiharu Shiota, for example, was already part of my plans two and a half years ago.

DQ – Certainly not. It’s not a pre-packaged show. It was conceived in close collaboration with the artist, in dialogue with the collection. Shiota created twenty-eight works specifically for the MAO. This is a project developed with meticulous care and depth, in collaboration with Mami Kataoka. For me, this is the true meaning of institutional work: constructing real processes, not mere exhibition events.

DQ – Contemporary art enters the museum as an interpretive tool, offering new readings of a collection that does not represent Asia per se but rather the European – and specifically Italian – history of taste regarding the Asia. Through interventions by artists, musicians, restorers, and thinkers, these works become living matter: explored, reinterpreted, and activated by contemporary perspectives.

DQ – Precisely. It’s a long-term engagement, not a brief residency. Artists develop projects over years: Francesco Simeti, for example, worked with us for over two years; Marzia Migliora for a year and a half; and now we are preparing a four-year project with Gala Porras-Kim. The goal is for works to become fully integrated into the museum’s fabric. We also collaborate with private partners – such as Bonotto, Wonderglass, and the Taiwanese Embassy – in a co-creative approach. This enables the museum to be a genuinely living space.

DQ – Exactly. The museum should resonate with people, not just serve as a site for contemplation. Through initiatives with the Provveditorato, for example, we develop programmes for high school students focused on well-being, not just traditional education. This approach fosters more empathetic and participatory experiences, aligned with ICOM guidelines.

DQ – For me, contemporary art is a lens, not an end in itself. It’s material culture that generates semantic shifts. It’s conceptual rather than purely aesthetic. Interventions reposition historical objects in the present, making them understandable and relevant. The Chiharu Shiota retrospective exemplifies this perfectly: it is emotional, accessible, visually engaging, yet maintains extraordinary depth and craftsmanship.

DQ – Turin is complex and fluid, a truly queer city in the broadest sense: rich in subcultures and transformations. The MAO, located near Porta Palazzo, collaborates closely with the neighbourhood and engages first- and second-generation designers. For example, we are developing a 150-metre frieze celebrating the district’s history and a multilingual Porta Palazzo Font in collaboration with the Superintendency, Turin’s Department of Trade, schools and a young Moroccan designer, Hamza Tihouna. These initiatives give the museum a role as an urban cultural laboratory.

DQ – Exactly. We are a small team, but full of energy. Last year alone we produced ninety-seven events and nine exhibitions. The museum, like the city, is a living organism. What matters is care, dedication, and the awareness that every detail – no matter how small –contributes to creating meaning.