This publication is conceived to document Marinella Senatore's first retrospective in a museum setting. It presents a selection of major projects by the Italian artist: from her early works, focused on everyday micro-narratives, to her most recent, aimed at exploring art's potential to seek dynamic interaction, and rather than relegating the audience to the passive role of spectators, foster the active involvement of participants. As the curator of the exhibition and editor of the publication Marcella Beccaria tells us, “Reflecting on the art of Marinella Senatore means examining a diverse body of work that includes film, video, photography, sound, installation, drawing, and collage, but also writing seminars, dance sessions and workshops on a wide range of subjects. In addition to this variety of languages and techniques, each of the artist's projects must also be analyzed from a broader angle that includes the context and modes of production that are employed, starting, at least conceptually, from her many conversations and interactions with the people she encounters, because it is on these forms of participatory synergy that the very existence of Senatore's works is based.”
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, from October 5, 2013 to January 6, 2014.
Born 1977 in Cava dei Tirreni (Italy), Marinella Senatore lives and works in Berlin and London. Her practice is characterized by public participation. The idea is to foster the creative power of a crowd, initiating a dialogue between history, culture and social structures. Senatore's work is to be experienced by everyone, inviting us to create a participative work in which everybody can play a role. She works with video, installations, performance, photographs and drawings, where the role of artist as author and public as recipient can be rewritten. Her work, Rosas (2012) an Opera for the screen, involved 20.000 citizens in Germany, Spain and UK. In 2013, Senatore founded The School of Narrative Dance, a nomadic, free of charge school, focused on storytelling, based on didactic systems fostering the emancipation of the student and activating processes of self-cultivation. In 2014 she launched at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, Estman Radio, an ongoing free podcast radio.
Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the Italy and abroad, including: Kunst Halle St. Gallen (CH); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (I); Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara (CA); 54th Venice Biennial, Illuminations (I); Göteborg Biennial (S); Contour-Biennal of Moving Image, Mechelen (B); Matadero, Madrid (E); Centre of Contemporary Art Torun (PL); AR/GE Kunst, Bolzano (I); Quad, Derby (UK); Kunsthlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (D); Mot International, London (UK); Peres Projects, Berlin (D); Via Farini, Milan (I); Macro Museum, Rome (I); Madre Museum, Naples (I); Liverpool Biennial (UK); Petach-Tikva Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (IL); 12th Bienal de Cuenca (Ecuador); 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (SLO); 4th Athens Biennial (GR); 11th Biennial de la Havana (Cuba); Moscow Biennial); Dublin Contemporary); Palazzo Grassi, Venice (I); MCA Chicago ( US); Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam (NL); Moderna Museet Stockholm (S).
In 2011 Marinella Senatore was affiliated Fellowship at The American Academy in Rome and finalist of Furla Art Award. In 2010 she won The New York Prize, the XXI Bellisario Award, Gotham Prize and Terna Prize; in 2009 she was recipient of Dena Foundation Fellowship. In 2013 she won the Fellowship for Young Italian artist of Castello di Rivoli-Museum of Contemporary Art. In 2014 isrecipient of “Museum calls artist” - AMACI, Association of Italian Art Museums and winner of MAXXI Prize.
