Lenz publishes books on contemporary art, photography, architecture and design.
Our imprint includes catalogues, monographs, theory and artist books.
This book accompanies 5 Works, Lydia Ourahmane’s first institutional solo show in Italy, staged at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation in Venice and curated by Polly Staple, during the 61st Venice Biennale, and includes newly commissioned texts and images that further contextualize the artist’s practice and work.
Museums of Tears extends Francesco Vezzoli’s 2024 exhibition at Museo Correr, Venice, combining historical works and new commissions to explore antiquity, emotion and illusion. Conceived as an artist’s book rather than a catalogue, it transforms the museum guide into a hybrid archive and portable museum of memory, beauty and mourning.
A project by Fondazione In Between Art Film, edited by Carla Subrizi, Paola Ugolini, and Maria Alicata, this illustrated volume investigates the cinematic, documentary, and video output of women artists and filmmakers operating in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, situating their research at the intersection of artistic experimentation, politics, society, and technology.
A multifaceted perspective on contemporary sculpture that explores the practices and concepts of the medium through different approaches. The publication interweaves works by Yu Ji, Bronwyn Katz, Dan Lie, Trương Công Tùng, and Luana Vitra, with essays by Federico Giani, Sohrab Mohebbi, Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga, Chiara Nuzzi, and Anne Reeve.
Suffused with specially conceived collages of the artist’s research materials, notes, and sketches, this is the first monograph on Castelli’s painting and sculpture, with essays by Sarah Crowe and Lillian Davies, and an artist interview by Francesco Manacorda. Published with Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Kunsthalle Wien.
What if the shadow moved first? From March through May 2026, the exhibition The Second Shadow. Dozie Kanu Mirroring Marc Camille Chaimowicz, with Shared Echoes and Kindred Spirits at Fondazione ICA Milano unfolds online through a series of voices and crossings that shift its gravity. Not an extension. A displacement.
Edited by Adriano Costa with Stefano Cernuschi
Texts by Fernanda Brenner, Milovan Farronato, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Adriano Costa
Designed by Tommaso Garner
2025, English, hardcover, 27 x 20 cm, 432 pages
ISBN 979-12-80579-78-2
In a practice now spanning three decades, Adriano Costa has embodied a playful yet critical approach to materiality, form, and social context. Working primarily with found and everyday objects, the artist transforms discarded materials—such as fabrics, furniture, metal, and plastic—into sculptural assemblages that question notions of value, taste, and authorship. His process often embraces imperfection, humor, and spontaneity, creating works that appear casual or improvised but carry deep social and cultural resonance. Costa’s art merges the aesthetics of resourcefulness and informality found in urban street life with a conceptual critique of global consumer culture.
Beauty and meaning can emerge from the overlooked or the broken: Costa’s installations and assemblages often evoke a sense of fragility and transience, emphasizing the impermanent and the handmade. Through this, Costa challenges the hierarchies of art production and the fetishization of the “finished” artwork. His use of found materials also reflects broader political and economic realities, particularly in Brazil, where scarcity and creativity often coexist. Ultimately, Adriano Costa’s work is a meditation on transformation—of objects, meanings, and systems of value—inviting viewers to reconsider what is discarded, both materially and socially.
This unprecedented catalogue collects over 300 pieces listed in alphabetical order—titles are a key part of Costa’s works—alongside new writing by Fernanda Brenner and Milovan Farronato, two critics who have long followed and championed the artist’s practice.
Photos: Nicola Gnesi