Biography and  main exhibitions

At the registry office Isaia Mabellini, artist active in the ’60s as a linear poet, refined his verbal-visual research since 1963 when he came into contact with Group 70 and became friends with Eugenio Miccini. He exhibited his works in Italy and abroad, coming into contact with artists such as Ugo Carrega, Julien Blaine, Jean-François Bory, Jochen Gerz, Paul De Vree, Jean-Claude Moineau and critics such as Gillo Dorfles. In 1971, together with Paul De Vree, he founded the magazine “Lotta Poetica” published in three series (1971/1975; 1982/1984 and 1987). In 1972 he exhibited for the first time at the Venice Biennale (he returned twice more, in 1986 and 2001). In the same year, together with Eugenio Miccini, he founded the SAR.MIC publishing house with the main aim of promoting the work of numerous Italian and international visual poets. In 1972 he participated in Documenta 5 in Kassel.  In 1977, again with Miccini, he founded the publishing house Factotum Art and the subsequent magazine “Factotum” (1977/1979). During these years he also actively participated in the programming of Paolo Berardelli’s gallery Centro in Brescia and was personally involved in the development of the Denza Archive of visual poetry with which he has worked since 1970.


In the eighties he founded the record magazine “RadioTaxi” (1982/1984), with which he published in audio version important authors of avant-garde and experimental poetry. In the same period he opened in Illasi (Vr) the Domus Jani, a cultural research center and founded with Miccini Verona Voce. The intelligent monthly magazine of Verona. In 1984 he made his first short film, Collage, and the following year he was invited to the XLII Venice Film Festival. Since 1982 Sarenco has undertaken numerous trips to Africa until he decided to move for a long time to Kenya, where he devoted himself to the promotion of African art and photography. In Malindi he opened an art gallery and published poetic and poetic-visual collections, such as Malindi dias, Malindi and M.A.L.I.N.D.I., and organized important exhibitions such as the First Biennial of Contemporary Art in Malindi. Even in recent years, between Italy and Kenya, Sarenco persists in his action as a promoter, cultural organizer and visual artist. In 2001 he participated with a personal room at the 49th Venice Biennale directed by Harald Szeemann. In 2008 in Brescia, at Fodazione Berardelli, he exhibited the exhibition: “I am a mountain poet and I boast”. In 2017 the Clivio Gallery in Milan dedicated a solo exhibition to the artist: “Sarenco, il guerrigliero” (Sarenco, the guerrilla).