Marinella SENATORE’s online presentation for Frieze is full of the same energy and dynamism that fuels her work. Featuring works made specifically for the fair, the viewing room embodies the Italian artist’s radical disciplinary practice and street activism through a selection of works intended to emulate the spirit of festivals and intensity of public gatherings.  

Senatore is known for work that merges forms of protest with theatre, music, dance and cinema. Her participatory practice focuses on issues of emancipation, social empowerment and equality. She often incorporates popular imagery drawn from Italian traditions and festivals, yet reinterprets these symbols as tools for protest and political subversion. Combining a cacophony of sound, visuals, slogans and colors, her work is at once celebratory and spirited but also purposeful, addressing social themes and issues to generate dialogue and potential for social change.  

Her presentation for Frieze online will feature new light pieces inspired by the traditional use of light structures in Italian religious festivals. A similar installation set the stage for Dior’s Cruise 2021 Collection, live streamed in Lecce, Italy in July 2020, evoking a local fairground with bright lights and framed by provocative feminist phrases. Senatore has regularly incorporated such structures into her work, including one under the Highline in New York, as a non-patriarchal space for people to enter and engage.  

The online viewing room will also feature a range of works on paper that draw on Senatore’s School of Narrative Dance, which the artist founded in 2012 to focus on the idea of storytelling as an experience that can be explored choreographically. Visuals from workshops and performances staged by the school animate these mixed media works, which combine prints of naked women, positioned in poses from Senatore’s performances, covered with mosaic mirror tiles, rope, graphite and paint. The works retain a sense of performance with their bold shapes and almost dance-like marks cutting across the page. Textile banners will also be on view, featuring union slogans and phrases embroidered on velvet wall-hangings.  

The second part of the presentation will showcase the work of artists both represented and non-represented by the gallery. This includes signal works by historical figures. Here we offer works by Eleanor ANTIN, Lynda BENGLIS, Helen CHADWICK, Judy CHICAGO, Tracey EMIN, Rose ENGLISH, Marcia HAFIF, Bice LAZZARI, Barbara LEVITTOUX-ŚWIDERSKA, Everlyn NICODEMUS, Jolanta OWIDZKA, Gina PANE, Carol RAMA, Su RICHARDSON, Jo SPENCE, Alina SZAPOCZNIKOW and Marina ABRAMOVIĆ & ULAY.