Carlos Amorales, Potrait in a rhythm patter 01, 2022.
Charcoal and chalk on paper mounted on canvas, 150 × 310 cm.

© Courtesy of the gallery.

When collectors visit your booth this year, what’s the first thing you want them to understand about your vision as a gallery?

​For our first participation, we chose to present a selection that reflects the core of our program. Perhaps its most “institutional” dimension. The three artists on view, Carlos Amorales, Santiago Cucullu, and Isadora Neves Marques, embody our commitment to research and to the specific thematic territories we have been exploring for many years.

Collectors increasingly look at institutional presence as a measure of longevity. How would you describe the institutional ecosystems surrounding these three artists?

All three enjoy strong institutional recognition. Amorales is represented in major Western collections such as Tate, MoMA, the Guggenheim, and more recently the Stedelijk. He has participated twice in the Venice Biennale, representing the Netherlands and later Mexico. Cucullu’s work has been collected by institutions such as MoMA and the Walker Art Center, and he has recently had notable solo exhibitions at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in the United States and the Museo Civico Gaetano Filangieri in Naples. Neves Marques, the youngest, already has a significant presence, with exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, CA2M in Madrid, and by representing Portugal at the 2022 Venice Biennale.
We chose to highlight these relationships with Western institutions because we believe they will resonate strongly here.

Isadora Neves Marques, The History of Sexuality (maize+Paré),2025.
Digital print on cotton paper, wooden frame, glass.
© Courtesy of the gallery.

Your program nurtures artists with intellectually demanding, research-driven practices. How do you see your long-term role in shaping their trajectories and reinforcing their presence in institutional and private collections?

This specificity comes with challenges, especially in periods of economic recession like the one we are experiencing now. Because we do not passively follow trends, the market sometimes reacts unevenly. Yet what could be perceived as a limitation is actually our greatest strength. Our identity. Over more than thirty years of activity, we have seen that institutions and collectors, in Italy and abroad, continue to value this constancy and depth.

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You’re presenting Amorales, Cucullu, and Neves Marques , three artists with very different contexts and methodologies. What deeper thread unites them at this moment?

Despite their differences, including generational ones, these three artists represent the key themes our gallery has pursued for decades. They share a strong interest in non-descriptive analyses of contemporary phenomena and a desire to reshape narratives and codes that we often accept as fixed.
Think of Amorales’ use of the West African bogolan tradition, Neves Marques’ botanical prints juxtaposing genetically modified plants with human anatomy, or Cucullu’s fragmented narratives sourced from distant cultural contexts.
Their practices differ, but they share a common impulse. Exposing the criticalities of Western culture, its dichotomies, its structures, its deep contradictions.

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Abu Dhabi is becoming a crossroads of continents and collecting cultures. What does presenting here offer that might not be possible in Europe, Asia, or the United States?

As with other new contexts we are engaging, such as China through Art Basel Hong Kong, it is extremely stimulating to encounter different cultures and perspectives. Our gallery often adopts a critical stance toward Western failures, and we believe that both the Middle East and China might find this approach meaningful. The positive feedback we have received in recent years has encouraged us to continue on this path.

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As the fair evolves, expectations evolve with it. What kinds of dialogues or engagements are you hoping Abu Dhabi Art will generate this year?

Establishing a dialogue with new contexts is essential for us. In Europe we are witnessing a physiological slowdown, economically and culturally. The acceleration and dynamism of these regions, by contrast, are extremely stimulating, even if sometimes difficult for Europeans to fully understand.