François Confino

The exhibition concept and installations of the WiMu of Falletti Castle in Barolo are designed by François Confino, one of the world’s most appreciated specialists in museum exhibitions.

Born in Geneva in 1945, Confino earned a degree in Architecture. He taught at Columbia University in New York, then he returned to Paris to set up “Archaeology in the City,” the inaugural exhibition of the Pompidou Center. Afterwards he worked on an enormous number of projects, integrating them with the pioneering use of multimedia.

Nel 1987 allestisce la mostra Cités – Cinés a La Villette a Parigi, poi itinerante in Francia, Belgio e Canada. Per la In 1987, he set up the exhibition Cités – Cinés at La Villette in Paris, and afterwards traveled in France, Belgium, and Canada. For the first on such a scale, a museum exhibition became spectacle, an incredible show. From then on, there is a long series of important projects all over the world: from Expo of Seville in 1992 to the Toyota Museum in Tokyo, to the Science Museum of Suzhou, in the district of Shanghai in 2005.

Here – in the absence of any permanent collections – the scenic design takes over, underlining the importance of the role of imagination in discovery.

Finally, among his most recent projects, Confino worked on the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (since 2006); on preparations of a permanent exhibit Slavery Memorial in Guadeloupe in the French West Indies (2010); and on the Pavilion of Future, one of five thematic pavilions of the Shanghai Expo of 2010. He worked also on the set of Chaplin’s World – The Modern Times Museum of Corsie su Vevey in Switzerland and for the Cité de l’Économie et de la Monnaie (CEM) in Paris.

In Italy, in Piedmont particularly, he worked for three projects: the National Museum of Cinema in the Mole Antonelliana in Turin, the WiMu Wine Museum in Barolo and the update of the National Museum of Car (MAUTO).

In Barolo he created an absolutely peculiar museum course. «Not a place where you learn how wine is made, but a place to talk about the relationship between “us” and “it.”».