T. rex vs. T. rex Exhibition at the Mole Antonelliana
"T. rex vs. T. rex. Da fossili a icone del cinema" ("T. rex vs. T. rex. From Fossils to Film Icons") is an exhibition organized by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema of Turin in the Aula del Tempio of the Mole Antonelliana, running from November 19, 2026 to January 31, 2028. The exhibition compares two mounted Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons, displayed facing one another, with a section dedicated to how the dinosaur became one of the most recognizable figures in the history of cinema [1].
The exhibition design
The two fossils were made available through a collaboration with the Theatrum Mundi gallery, which also supplied a selection of other items on display. The exhibition path intertwines paleontological specimens with images drawn from over a century of film history, tracing how a creature extinct tens of millions of years before the appearance of humans became a recurring presence on the big screen, caught between science and fiction, wonder and terror [1].
Statements
Enzo Ghigo, president of the Museo Nazionale del Cinema, and director Carlo Chatrian described the exhibition as "an unprecedented encounter that transforms the Museum's iconic hall into a place suspended between the distant past and the contemporary imagination," stressing the difficulty of bringing two such rare fossils to Italy [1]. The mayor of Turin, Stefano Lo Russo, described the initiative as a cross-disciplinary exhibition that brings science and cinema into dialogue through the imagery of prehistory, contributing to the city's cultural offerings [1]. The president of the Piedmont Region, Alberto Cirio, highlighted that the project arose from a collaboration between the Museo Nazionale del Cinema and the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali, calling it an opportunity to strengthen Piedmont's cultural and tourist appeal [1].
The concept
According to the organizers, the exhibition shows for the first time at the Mole Antonelliana the deep time of Earth set against the time of cinema: dinosaurs form both the beginning and the end of the exhibition path, serving as both subject and object of a narrative that gives visual form to something never directly observed, which can only be imagined or reconstructed [1].
Related articles: Mole Antonelliana, National Museum of Cinema
Pages linking here
Sources
- TorinoClick — 19 September 2026
- la Repubblica Torino — 19 September 2026