The National Automobile Museum celebrates Mimmo Frassineti

The Sguardi d’Impresa exhibition arrives in Turin

Summary

Comprising over 40 shots, it draws from the historic archives of the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Group and is part of a broader project to promote the artistic and cultural heritage of CDP

The exhibition represents the final body of work of the late photographer, connecting two sets of shots taken 45 years apart in the Ferrari production facilities in Maranello

A tribute to one of the protagonists of Italian industrial photography in an exhibition that intertwines the history of enterprise culture with contemporaneity. After stops in Modena and Rome, the exhibition Sguardi d’Impresa. Mimmo Frassineti fotografa la Ferrari will be hosted at MAUTO - The National Automobile Museum from 26 March to 3 May. The exhibition is promoted by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and Fondazione di Modena, in collaboration with Ferrari, with support from Fondazione Ago Modena Fabbriche Culturali and under the patronage of the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy. It is also included among the initiatives of the National Day of Made in Italy.

The opening of the exhibition held today was attended by MAUTO President Benedetto Camerana, MAUTO Director Lorenza Bravetta, CDP Chairman Giovanni Gorno Tempini, Fondazione di Modena President Matteo Tiezzi, Ferrari Chief Industrial Officer Davide Abate and the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy's Head of Casa del Made in Italy in Piedmont, Val d'Aosta and Liguria Vincenzo Zezza, with concluding words from Enrica Frassineti, Mimmo’s daughter.

Composed of over 40 photographs, Sguardi d’Impresa represents the final work produced by Mimmo Frassineti – photographer, painter, journalist and author of industrial reportage – who passed away on 17 February 2026 at the age of 83. In the exhibition, two sets of shots taken 45 years apart at the Ferrari production facilities in Maranello are juxtaposed: the first, from 1980, is now part of the Historical Archive of the CDP Group; the second, from 2024, was commissioned by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

The CDP Group’s entire Historical Photographic Archive has been the subject of a comprehensive digitisation and curation project. With over 20,000 images, it documents the country’s industrial development between the 1930s and the 1990s, highlighting the role of public finance in supporting the main strategic sectors of the Italian economy.

Curated by the CDP Artistic and Cultural Heritage department in collaboration with Mimmo Frassineti's family, the exhibition revolves around four keywords – Connections, Harmony, Craftsmanship, Precision – which highlight continuity and transformations in labour and production sites. The exhibition thus becomes a broader reflection on the culture of Italian enterprise as an everyday practice that renews itself over time, making our know-how recognisable. The result is not just a comparison between two eras but also a reflection on the deep bond uniting human and machine, built on pride, passion, skill and responsibility.

To honour a career spanning 60 years, at MAUTO there is also a core of eight photographs from the historical archives of the CDP Group, taken by Mimmo Frassineti at other industrial facilities.

While in Turin, the sculpture The Traveller's Column (1966) by Arnaldo Pomodoro was also exhibited, currently preserved in the company museum of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti. In a play of iconographic references, the sculpture dialogues with the exhibition images and enriches the perspective on the role of business in promoting culture. Columns have been a significant constant in Pomodoro's art since the early 1960s: a reinterpretation of the classical column architectural element, rich in symbolic meanings and memories, which the artist conveys with his characteristic fractures and patterns of markings.

Giovanni Gorno Tempini, Chairman of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, commented that “The memory of Mimmo Frassineti accompanies this final stage of the exhibition dedicated to him. After Modena and Rome, the National Automobile Museum is the natural place to conclude an exhibition celebrating the relationship between business, art and the local community. The exhibition confirms Cassa Depositi e Prestiti's commitment to promoting its artistic and archival heritage and is part of a broader project, initiated with the creation of the CDP Museum: a space that not only preserves memory but also looks to the future through contemporary art and photography. This exhibition represents the most authentic way to remember Mimmo Frassineti and to rediscover what makes each business great: people, stories and ingenuity”.

Benedetto Camerana, Chairman of MAUTO, added that “We are particularly honoured to host “Sguardi d’impresa” at MAUTO: for the renewed collaboration with Ferrari, which has developed over years on numerous projects, some even in recent months, and for the first collaboration on a project with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, an essential Italian public institution, which shares with us the strategy of conservation and promotion of the historical cultural heritage of our country's industry, with a broad, horizontal approach for CDP, and a vertical focus for MAUTO. This joint project highlights the cultural value of industrial production, paying homage to the vision of Mimmo Frassineti, recently passed away, capable of narrating the relationship between person, work and machine with extraordinary sensitivity. Through the photographic and archival heritage of CDP, and thanks to the contribution of an iconic company like Ferrari, a vision clearly emerges in which the company is not only a place of production but also a generator of culture, memory and collective identity”.

Matteo Tiezzi, President of the Fondazione di Modena, noted that “We experience this exhibition as a dutiful tribute to Mimmo Frassineti, who was able to see work in its most vivid truth, in gestures, in precision and in the daily dignity of people. He left us images that simultaneously document and interpret, because they convey the strength of an industrial culture built on skill, sensitivity, responsibility and pride. In these photographs we find an important part of our local identity, with its globally recognised excellence and a profound trait of the country, because Italian know-how takes shape when industry, work and culture meet with this intensity. The great interest that the exhibition is arousing also confirms that creating networks contributes to generating authentic cultural value”.