M HKA Ensembles

1945 - 2017

Born in Vobarno (IT), died in IT.

Sarenco is the pseudonym of northern Italian poet and artist Isaia Mabellini, who during his versatile artistic career is both gallery owner and publisher of art books, editions, sonorous poetry and catalogues, as well as agitator, animator and curator.

In 1969, Sarenco founds Amodulo, a publishing house for concrete art and visual poetry, and an eponymous magazine in which he publishes his militant poetry views. Sarenco is one of the most significant exponents of the anti-institutional underground culture in Italy. Along with Belgian poet Paul De Vree, he starts the very polemical art magazine Lotta poetica in 1971, as an antipode to Giancarlo Politi's Flash Art. The magazine becomes the international nucleus and advocate for a socially critical and engaged visual poetry – poesia visiva – and appears until 1987.

With words and images and via various associations, Sarenco wants to appeal to the viewer, demystifying (often using offensive comments) the way the political and cultural arena is coded.