Galleria Umberto Di Marino

Locations

Casa Di Marino
via Monte di Dio 9
80132 Naples

Contacts

Umberto Di Marino
Email
Website
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Category

Contemporary

The Galleria Umberto Di Marino opened in 1994 in Giugliano. From the start, it focused on the coexistence between artistic language and troubled suburbs like those of Naples. The aim of this first experiment was to create a place that garnered interest and participation, firstly for the gallery’s circle of contacts and then for the entire community. Some of the most important exhibitions from that period were Napoli Borderline by Vettor Pisani, in 2001, and Architetture del colore by Hidetoshi Nagasawa, in 2002.

Eugenio Tibaldi, *Balera*, 2021, exhibition view, Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Naples. Photo: Danilo Donzelli

In 2005, the gallery inaugurated a new space in the center of Naples. There are regular and alternating exhibitions by young Italian and international artists in its schedule.

Isadora Pedro Neves Marques, *In Space it’s Always Night!*, 2023, exhibition view, Casa Di Marino, Naples. Photo: Danilo Donzelli

Over the years, Galleria Umberto Di Marino has put greater emphasis on its spirit of research, directing its interest towards an analysis of the relationship between architecture, nature, anthropology and alternative lifestyles. A close look at the territory and the support of the institutions has made it possible to mount numerous off-site exhibitions in historic locations around the city of Naples.

The year 2022 is marked instead by the opening of Casa Di Marino, which stems from the need to concentrate the gallery’s history and energies in a different dimension, linked to a very personal vision of the role of the gallery owner. Casa Di Marino represents that mixture of domestic and working environments already partially put into practice in the first years of activity in Giugliano in Campania. Visitors are invited to confront not only an exhibition space, but will mix with the dynamics that define a home that has always been built around the attempt of its own narrative of contemporaneity. Places usually hidden or private to an activity will become crucial in the gallery’s experience and everyday life, and so the office, the storage room, the library, will at the same time be everyday domestic environments. The invitation to enter the private sphere is intended to stimulate in the visitor a commitment to deeper confrontation and the development of a different interest than the logics of artistic production.

In conversation with Umberto di Marino, Galleria Umberto Di Marino

What do you predict for the future of the art system in the sector in which you work? What is the biggest challenge you’ll be facing?

I often used to stop and think about how some processes of overproduction were changing the art system. Already a year ago, with Visto da qui, I attempted to answer this question by stripping away unnecessary appendages in the exhibition. The biggest challenge was to create Casa Di Marino, with a mixture of gallery and domestic space, responding to that first intuition of a gallery as a common good.

When and how did you open your gallery?

The gallery was established in 1994 in Giugliano, Campania. At the time, I couldn’t help but analyze the area surrounding my gallery, the Neapolitan suburbs. Moving to Naples in 2005 allowed me to collaborate with more international institutions and artists, and this way, I became more focused on social and political issues, on how modernity and post-colonialism had failed.

Marco Giordano, *Un—Shaped Breath*, 2023, exhibition view, Casa Di Marino, Naples. Photo: Danilo Donzelli

Your program: what kind of art do you deal in?

I’ve always understood the gallery as an extension of my thinking, with the idea of expanding even further through the eyes of the artists. One of the most extensively developed themes is the reinterpretation of colonial dynamics; the overcoming of modernist dichotomous principles; anthropological, social and political research. Furthermore, with my artists, I’ve always tried to build relationships that were also honest and profound friendships.

Something important you’ve learned from an artist? And from a collector?

In regard to artists, I will never forget Vettor Pisani’s advice, especially his lucid and ever-current analysis of the art system. Among collectors, I enjoy mentioning the Cotroneo couple’s and Ovidio Jacorossi’s enormous passion for art, a passion that drove them to the provinces, and the incredible institutional organization and personal involvement of the Agovino and Taurisano collections.

How do you imagine your gallery ten years from now?

The need for a structural change in institutions and the reflection on the common good led me to imagine the gallery of the future as an intimate place, where it would be possible to do more work with artists and to visit the repository and the archive. I see it as a home for our family and for those who want to get in touch with this new dimension.

Read the full interview