To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, the 1985 cult film produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Robert Zemeckis, there could hardly be a more fitting setting than the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile in Turin (Mauto), which has just inaugurated the exhibition “Back to the Future. Prototypes of Time”, on view until January 2026.
The “Time Machine” from Back to the Future on show in Turin
With “Back to the Future. Prototypes of Time”, Mauto museum expands its narrative beyond the history of the automobile, transforming the DeLorean DMC-12 into an object of reflection on time itself: its rhythms, accelerations, and cultural shifts.
Photo Bin Jia
Courtesy Archivio Italdesign
Courtesy Archivio Italdesign
Courtesy Archivio Italdesign
Courtesy Studio Anri Sala
Courtesy Studio Anri Sala
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- Ilaria Bonvicini
- 07 October 2025
Curated by Gianluigi Ricuperati, the exhibition brings together artworks and film props in a dialogue with the museum’s historical collection, using this encounter to question our perception of “time” through the lens of design culture and pop imagination.
Curated by Gianluigi Ricuperati, the exhibition brings together artworks and film props in a dialogue with the museum’s historical collection, using this encounter to question our perception of “time” through the lens of design culture and pop imagination. “Back to the Future. Prototypes of Time” unfolds in two mirrored sections, united, as Ricuperati explains, “by a theme that connects them: the mechanics of time and space, and what allows us to traverse them.” The first section opens with the 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro for Italdesign, the time machine of Emmet “Doc” Brown and Marty McFly, accompanied here by original sketches and archival drawings. Completing the display are two original film props—the TRW keypad and the time circuit switch—objects that seem to place the DeLorean precisely on the threshold between reality and science fiction.
Beyond this automobile, time takes on a suspended, immaterial quality in Suspended, a series of twelve works by artist Anri Sala, presented together for the first time in a museum setting. In these digital compositions, the passage of time unfolds through celestial layers and elusive landscapes, exploring the tension between measure and perception, between mechanical precision and the fluidity of lived experience.
The project also confirms the direction undertaken by Mauto under the leadership of Lorenza Bravetta: “a path begun two years ago with projects by Paul Etienne Lincoln, Cristian Chironi, and Robert Kusmirowski, now continuing with the reinstallation of the permanent collection” to foster new readings of the museum’s heritage.
Exhibition: Back to the Future. Prototypes of Time Curated by: Gianluigi Ricuperati Where: Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile, Turin, Italy Dates: October 1, 2025 to January 11, 2026
Installation view