Why was Guggenheim bigwig Richard Armstrong in Turin last month, and why was he so keen to meet the city’s mayor, Piero Fassino? The Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported that the Guggenheim foundation’s director also dropped in on Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, the director of the Castello di Rivoli contemporary art museum, and Maurizio Braccialarghe, the city’s cultural commissioner. Armstrong’s connection to Turin goes back to 2012, when he also met Fassino and Braccialarghe, who apparently hoped to sign a cultural exchange partnership with the New York-based foundation. A spokeswoman for the Guggenheim foundation tells us: “Richard Armstrong and the mayor of Turin met briefly for a purely social visit. Richard and Philip Rylands [the director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice] did make a research visit to Turin in 2012. No exhibitions were promised.” Will Turin succeed in wooing the Guggenheim this time around?
