Frieze Masters 2026_Anna Esposito: I Told You So

Since the late 1960s, Esposito has developed a body of work beginning with paintings depicting weathered advertising posters on urban walls. These are not décollages, but paintings that capture the image as it gradually disappears, revealing the ephemeral nature of the promises on which advertising builds its persuasive power. Painting thus becomes a tool of critical inquiry, exposing the illusion of endless prosperity, growth and consumption promoted by contemporary society.

Over the following decades, this investigation expanded through collage, photography, assemblage and mixed media. Advertising, photojournalism, industrial imagery and everyday objects are reworked to reveal the relationships between consumerism, environmental exploitation, violence against animals and the construction of the collective imagination. Rather than anticipating today's crises, Esposito recognised their early signs, showing how images actively shape the cultural, economic and social models of our time.

The exhibition retraces the coherence of a research practice spanning more than five decades, reaffirming Anna Esposito as one of the most original voices in Italian contemporary art for her critical investigation into the relationship between images, consumption and society.