Oblong Contemporary Gallery

Exhibo editorial

Pietrasanta is a small Tuscan city near the Apuan Alps where Michelangelo came to pick marble, and where an army of sculptors has gathered in his wake for five centuries since. It has foundries, marble studios and a particular culture of making things that last. Emanuela Venturini and Paola Marucci grew up in and around that world — one as an architect with a sensitivity for art, the other from economics who moved to Pietrasanta and got absorbed into the sculpture scene. They founded Oblong in Forte dei Marmi in 2021 and then opened in Dubai, first on Bluewaters Island as the first gallery on the island, and later on Al Khayat Avenue in Al Quoz. The name is a shape — two long sides, two short sides, all right angles — and also a description of what the gallery does: two founders, two cities, two cultures, held together by a genuine love for form. The speciality is sculpture, particularly bronze and marble. The programme has included Igor Mitoraj, Stefano Bombardieri, Jonty Hurwitz and Mr. Brainwash alongside Iranian painters and Slovenian printmakers. Pietrasanta by way of Al Quoz.