Biography
Marina Baisel came to gallery-making from two directions simultaneously: interior design and her own art practice. Both inform how she thinks about space — not as a neutral container for objects, but as something that changes with every exhibition, that creates its own narrative and atmosphere. When she opened Rarares in 2024 in Gate Avenue DIFC, she was explicit about what she wanted: a space positioned between commercially driven blue-chip galleries and smaller regional ones, bringing international and emerging artists into dialogue without forcing them into either category. She is also one of the artists the gallery shows. Her own practice works with functional sculpture — everyday objects transformed to explore how familiar forms lose and regain meaning as humanity's relationship with the environment shifts. Her recent work reflects on the erasure of primal imagery in the pursuit of an infinite future. She has shown at Cosmoscow, the Collect Art Fair at Somerset House in London, Maison&Objet in Paris, Art Central Hong Kong and the DIFC Sculpture Park. Running a gallery and maintaining an active practice at the same time is an unusual position. Baisel has built Rarares around the idea that art should inspire people to do good — which is either a mission statement or a curatorial instinct, and in her case appears to be both.