The Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with the Mazzoleni Gallery, London-Turin, is pleased to host “I Contain Multitudes”, Marinella Senatore’s first solo exhibition, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The exhibition will be open to the public from 20-26 November 2023, coinciding with the prestigious annual art fair – Abu Dhabi Art – this year in its 15th edition and promoted by Abu Dhabi Culture and the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi.
A regular exhibitor at many distinguished art biennials, Marinella Senatore has seen her work exhibited in some of the most famous museums around the world. Multidisciplinary in her approach, Senatore’s work is based on the aesthetics of ‘resilience’ and the ‘transformative power of social commitment,’ with a strong collective component and a strong participatory dimension.
Commenting on Senatore’s participation at Abu Dhabi Art, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi, Dr. Susanna Iacona Salafia, said: “To inaugurate my direction of the Italian Cultural Institute in Abu Dhabi, the Culture section of the Embassy of Italy in the UAE, with an exhibition of Marinella Senatore’s work is a great honor. In our opinion, Senatore is a multifaceted artist with multifunctional imprint and fits very well into an intercultural context, such as we observe here in the UAE. Abu Dhabi, and indeed the whole of the UAE, is an environment that is always attentive to the new stimuli and impulses that come from international Contemporary Art”.
The exhibited works include her signatory luminaire neon and collage pieces. Since 2016, Marinella Senatore has also created large, site-specific, light installations, such as those presented at the High Line in New York, in 2018, and in Piazza Duomo, in Lecce, on the occasion of the Dior Cruise 2021 (2020) fashion show, and in the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi, in Florence (2020).
Senatore’s Baroque style luminaries, in particular rose windows and portals, have become catalysts of energy aimed at celebrating individuals and communities, whilst her neon works, on the other hand, are the direct derivation of large luminous sculptures. Senatore’s collages, are most certainly not her only recurring technique, but they have remained a constant in the artist’s now twenty-year career and research. It is also a medium that the artist, herself, finds to be one of the most direct translations of her personal and collective thoughts – arranging the elements of the narrative on a surface is the direct translation between mind and hands, between concept and action.
Marinella Senatore participation in global art biennials includes exhibits at: Venice Biennial; Sao Paulo Biennial; Lyon Biennial; Thessaloniki Biennial; Liverpool Biennial; Athens Biennial; Havana Biennial; Gothenburg Biennial; Cuenca Biennial; Pune Biennial; South Tyrol Biennial; Bangkok Biennial, and Manifesta 12 Palermo.
Additionally, Senatore has exhibited in some of the most prestigious museums around the world. These include: The Pompidou Centre, Paris; Kunsthaus Zurich; MAXXI Museum, Rome; Rivoli Castle, Turin; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The High Line, New York; Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, St. Gallen; Faena Art Forum, Miami Beach; Bozar, Brussels; Queens Museum, New York; Petach Tikva Museum of Art, Petach Tikva; Museum Villa Stuck, Munich; Museum der Moderne Salzburg; Hayward Gallery, London; Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin; Serpentine Gallery,
London; CCA, Tel Aviv; Madre Museum, Naples; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal; ICA, Richmond; BAK Utrecht; Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Madrid; Palazzo Grassi, Venice; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
The exhibition is open to visitors between 9:00am – 4:00pm