ART INDEX: Lorenzo Marini
Lorenzo Marini (1958, Italy), an accomplished figure in both advertising and the arts, began his career after obtaining his architecture degree in Venice in 1980. He worked with various Italian advertising agencies, including Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, Canard, and Gruppo Armando Testa. In 1997, he founded Lorenzo Marini & Associati in Milan, expanding to Turin and later opening an office in New York in 2010.
As an art director, Marini received over 500 awards in Italy and globally, notably earning the Lion d’Or at the Cannes International Advertising Festival for his Agnesi pasta campaign in 1985.
Besides advertising, he is a multidisciplinary artist, engaging in activities such as cartoon drawing, directing, painting, and writing. He has authored several non-fiction works and two novels, one of which has been translated into English.
Marini's radio program, "Il giorno della marmotta" ("Groundhog Day"), on Italy's RAI 2 radio station, explores creativity alongside Dario Vergassola.
Mentored by Emilio Vedova, Marini ventured into the art world in 2010, with initial exhibitions in New York and Miami, including participation in Art Basel Miami. In 2016, he introduced "Type Art" at the Palazzo della Permanente in Milan and exhibited it at the 57th Biennale Arte in Venice (at the Armenia Pavilion) in 2017.
Marini has made significant contributions to branding, creating logos for various organizations and companies, including Lavazza Espression, Galleria Borghese, Conai, Lux Vide, Fastweb, Novamont, and others.
His collaboration with Cramum and Sabino Maria Frassà resulted in the AlphaCUBE installation, which was displayed in Venice, Dubai, and Los Angeles.
In 2020, Marini received the Mobius Advertising Award for his innovative alphabet creation, Futurtype, presented in Los Angeles. He also unveiled "Typemoticon" as part of his exhibition "Out of Words" at Gaggenau Hub in Milan. Marini's TypeArt movement celebrates the aesthetic beauty of letters.
Marini's creative prowess extended to designing the Manifesto for the Venice Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in September 2020, titled "Aperture Straordinarie" ("Extraordinary Openings").
During the COVID-19 lockdown in Italy in 2020, Marini organized artistic events in major cities, symbolizing unity through his liberated alphabets.
In 2021, he received the AVI award for the most visited contemporary art exhibition in Italy, "Di Segni e Di Sogni" ("Of Signs and of Dreams"), held at the Santa Maria della Scala museum complex in Siena.
If we take into consideration the artist's works that have gone up for sale at public auction, we find that his art has already been sold at auction 18 times.The oldest auction recorded on Artprice.net is for the artwork Space visual 4 presented in 2018 and the most recent is for the artwork Gray alphatype presented in 2023.
The artist's works are mainly sold in Italy. As we can see from the graphic below, Lorenzo Marini is relatively new to the auction game but has quickly left his mark, with 2019 being his best turnover year so far. We are curious to see what new works he will show and how his market curve will evolve. Next up, his works will be on display at booth C22 at Context Art Miami, December 5-10, 2023, represented by the Alessandro Berni Gallery: we are really excited to see what he will show!
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