GlASSeS. BeAuty AcceSSorieS

ART EXHIBITIONS

EXPERIENCE OF THE SENSES

GALLERIA CONTINUA IN DUBAI WITH ANISH KAPOOR text Francesca Lombardi photo Adham Almalla courtesy the artist and Galleria Continua

Galleria Continua has just inaugurated a new exhibition space inside one of the most beautiful hotels in the world, the iconic, super star-studded, sail-shaped Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, along the largest and most exclusive private beach in Dubai. It opens with one of the most heavyweight names on the international art scene, Anish Kapoor, who has worked with Galleria Continua for over 25 years. The gallery comes to Dubai after having already exhibited at San Gimignano’s old CinemaTheatre (the historic site of the gallery, opened in 1990), at a Bauhaus-styled former factory in Beijing (2004), at the site of two old mills and an industrial paper factory in the Parisian countryside named ‘Les Moulins’ (2007), at a cinema in Havana’s China Town (2015), at the Pacaembu sports complex in Sao Paulo (2020), more recently, at a space within the ‘The St. Regis’ hotel in Rome (2020), and, finally at the multifunctional site opened last January in the heart of Paris. In reality, this is not the gallery’s first time in Dubai, since it has long participated in the art fairs Art Dubai, since 2008, and Abu Dhabi Art, since 2012. As the three founders of the gallery, Mario Cristiani, Lorenzo Fiaschi and Maurizio Rigillo, tell us, “The network of relationships and friendships built up over this period of time are the humus that have given shape, meaning and substance to this new project. Our experience opening a pop-up in Dubai is not only an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen our bond with the United Arab Emirates, but also a way to contribute, with our energies, and, above all, with the universal language of

GALLERIA art, to the construction of dia-

CONTINUA OPENS logue and cultural exchanges ITS DUBAI SPACE WITH ANISH KAPOOR, between different populations. We believe that art is the ideal territory for expressing oneself,

ONE OF THE for stimulating and making MOST IMPORTANT changes happen, for growing

NAMES ON THE together while respecting dif-

INTERNATIONAL SCENE WHO HAS ferences, and in the awareness that multiculturalism means enrichment for all of us”. WORKED WITH THE Anish Kapoor’s solo exhibition GALLERY FOR MORE at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah

THAN 25 YEARS offers an opportunity to get an overview of the artist’s 30 years of work, and to see some compelling previously unseen pieces, alongside several iconic ones. The exhibition focuses on the use of matter and colour as an experience of the senses, which is a perfect match for the incredible suspended spaces of the hotel. A British citizen of Indian origin, Kapoor was born in Bombay in 1954, and moved to London to study art at the age of 19.