ARTE POVERA "Arte Povera","arme Kunst".Termin Arte Povera je potekao od talijanskog kritiara GERMANA CELANTA 1967.

Njegovi tekstovi i brojne izlobe dale su identitet brojnim mladim talijanskim umjetnicima u Torinu, Milanu, Genovi i Rimu. Oni su radili na novi radikalan nain, prekidajui s prolou i poinju poticajan dijalog s trendovima u Evropi i Americi. Arte povera 1967. kritiar Germano Celant definirao je kao Arte Poveru (poor art) djlo trinaest mladih talijanskih umjetnika. Kroz skulpturu i instalacije istraivali su relaciju izmeu umjetnosti i ivota.Stvaraju svoj manifest kroz prirodu, elementarnu materiju ili kulturoloke predmete i doivljavaju je svojim tijelom. Njihova inovativna djela su lirina, to su beskrajne kombinacije nespojivih materijala mramor i salata voe u neonskim cijevima stvarajui banalne materijale metafizike dimenzije. S prvom zajednikom izlobom u Italiji kasnih 60-ih umjetnici Anselmo, Boetti, Calzolari, Fabro, Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Paolini, Pascali, Penone, Pistoletto, Prini and Zorio postali su meunarodno prepoznati i priznati. Povezujui prirodno i umjetno, urbano i ruralno, Mediteranski ivot i zapadnjaku modernost umjetnici Arte povere impact still resounds.

Germano Celant

Concept :
Coined in 1967 by the Italian art critic Germano Celant. Metaphoric message referring to both nature and contemporary life by using natural, daily materials. In keeping with a process of political claims, of unexpected confrontations in order to provoke the onlooker's sensitivity.

Representative artists
Pino Pascali Jannis Kounellis Michelangelo Pistoletto Giulo Paolini Giovanni Anselmo Alighiero e Boetti Luciano Fabro Mario and Marisa Merz

Gilberto Zorio Pier Paolo Calzolari Giuseppe Penone.

Related movements
Land art Spatialism

Opposite movements
Op art Pop art
Jannis Kounellis was born in 1936 in Piraeus, Greece. In 1956, Kounellis moved to Rome and enrolled in the Accademia di Belle Arti. While still a student, he had his first solo show, titled Lalfabeto di Kounellis, at the Galleria la Tartaruga, Rome, in 1960. The artist exhibited black-and-white canvases that demonstrated little painterliness; on their surfaces, the artist stenciled letters and numbers. Influenced by Alberto Burri as well as Lucio Fontana, whose work offered an alternative to the Expressionism [more] of Art Informel [more], Kounellis was looking to push painting into new territory. He was inspired, too, by the work of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, and by the earlier abstractions of Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondrian. Kounelliss painting would gradually become sculptural; by 1963, the artist was using found elements in his paintings. Kounellis began to use live animals in his art during the late 1960s; one of his best-known works included 11 horses installed in the gallery. Kounellis not only questioned the traditionally pristine, sterile environment of the gallery but also transformed art into a breathing entity. His diverse materials from the late 1960s onward included fire, earth, and gold, sometimes alluding to his interest in alchemy. Burlap sacks were introduced, in an homage to Burri, though they were stripped of the painting frame and exhibited as objects in space. Additional materials have included bed frames, doorways, windows, and coatracks. People, too, began to enter his art, adding a performative dimension to his installations. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kounellis continued to build his vocabulary of materials, introducing smoke, shelving units, trolleys, blockaded openings, mounds of coffee grounds, and coal, as well as other indicators of commerce, transportation, and economics. These diverse fragments speak to general cultural history, while simultaneously they combine to form a rich and evocative history of meaning within Kounelliss oeuvre. In 1967, Kounellis was included in an important group exhibition entitled Arte povera e IM spazio at the Galleria La Bertesca, Genoa. Curator Germano Celant coined the term Arte Povera [more] to refer to the humble materials, sometimes described as detritus, which Kounellis and others were employing at the time to make their elemental, anti-elitist art. Kounellis had his first solo show in New York in 1972 at the Sonnabend Gallery. During the 1970s and 1980s, his work was shown extensively; among these was a solo exhibition that traveled in the early 1980s to several museums in Europe, including the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Obra Social, Caja de Pensiones, Madrid; the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; and the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. In 1985, the Muse dArt Contemporain, Bordeaux, mounted an important exhibition of the artists production. The following year, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, staged a retrospective exhibition of Kounelliss work; the show traveled to the Muse dArt Contemporain, Montreal. In 1989, the artist was given an exhibition at the Espai Pobenou in Barcelona. In 1994, Kounellis installed a selection of over 30 years of his work in a boat called Ionion and docked this floating retrospective in his home port of Piraeus. The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofa held an exhibition of Kounelliss work in Madrid in 1997. The artist lives in Rome.

'Something we need to reach today is unity between life and our art practice', said Jannis Kounellis (b. 1936, Piraeus) in 1968. He demonstrates this unity through the transformation of the gallery into a theatre where real life and fiction merge. Born in Greece, he moved to Rome in 1956 due to civil war. His early works were 'sign' and 'alphabet' paintings, which incorporated large black letters, arrows or mathematical symbols, and were often stencilled to diminish evidence of the artist's touch. In 1966-7, Kounellis began to incorporate threedimensional materials into his paintings. By the following year, they had become installations resembling stage sets, in which the viewers were the actors. His materials, which include iron, cotton, coal, coffee, wood, fire, stones, earth, sacks, plants, and live animals are used symbolically, often chosen for their smell, or for their historical association with the place in which the work is shown. In installations such as the three part Untitled, 1967, a dream-like environment is created, where cacti and cotton wool emerge from iron structures, juxtaposed with a

perch, which is sometimes occupied by a live parrot. One of Kounellis' most famous works, created in 1969, was Untitled (12 horses), an installation in L'Attico Gallery in Rome consisting of twelve live horses tethered in the gallery for some days. This was an extreme manifestation of the desire to make art that could not be sold. He chose horses for their art-historical links to heroic paintings and equestrian statues. Kounellis' poetic later works are also laden with references to history and myth.

Jannis Kounellis
Peintures et Objets

Sans Titre (Lettere Nere), 1962, Dtrempe sur papier, 150 x 209 cm

Untitled 1982-1985
steel, wood, paint, plaster, wool and burlap 487.0 x 964.0 x 45.0 cm (installed)

Titolo opera : "Untitled" Tecnica : scultura (ferro, carbone, giornali) Formato : 40 x 27 x h 55 cm Gallery of Contemporary Art Jannis Kounellis:no title, 1996

Jannis Kounellis Sen ttulo, 1984 Aceiro, pintura, mancha de fume Variable (32 repisas, 40 x 14 x 0,1 cm c/u)

In September 1996 the artist Jannis Kounellis came to the Hamburg Kunsthalle to create a long-term installation for the Gallery of Contemporary Art.Since the 1960s, Kounellis, one of the founders of arte povera, has been working with 'poor', untypical artistic materials, with which he creates objects and installations. He nevertheless continues to describe himself as a painter. The new work in the Gallery of Contemporary Art certainly has a pictorial quality: framed right and left by two vertical iron supports, layers of large sandstones wrapped in commercial jute sacks have been piled on top of one other. The result is a wall weighing seven tons, a painting-like sculpture. Layers of found material have featured in Kounellis' work since the 1980s. Here it is jute sacks, and despite their having been removed from the goods chain, the stencilled lettering recalls their usual contents: food and fuel, the necessities of life. Combined with the burden of the hidden stones they form a picture - a kind of painting beyond painting. During this visit Kounellis also installed an important work acquired in 1994 by the Stiftung zur Frderung der Hamburgischen Kunstsammlungen (foundation to support Hamburg art

collections), which visitors to the Kounellis exhibition in 1995 will remember: flame-shaped tongues of soot ascending from iron wall brackets, traces of a process of transformation, signifying both the past and a change for the future.

Jannis Kounellis

Installation view of Kounellis's bags of grain in the exhibition, Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form, Kunsathalle Bern 1969 Courtesy Harry Shrunk, New York

"Sin ttulo" 1988 Mixed media. Acero, plomo, abrigo y escarabajos 1-200 x 180 5-100 x 70 cm

KOUNELLIS, Jannis

Jannis Kounellis

Senza titolo,1967

Senza titolo,1981

Senza titolo,1971

Mario Merz was born January 1, 1925, in Milan. He grew up in Turin and attended medical
school for two years at the Universit degli Studi di Torino. During World War II he joined the anti-Fascist group Giustizia e Libert and was arrested in 1945 and confined to jail, where he drew incessantly on whatever material he could find. In 1950, he began to paint with oil on canvas. His first solo exhibition, held at Galleria La Bussola, Turin, in 1954, included paintings whose organic imagery Merz considered

representative of ecological systems. By 1966, he began to pierce canvases and objects, such as bottles, umbrellas, and raincoats, with neon tubes, altering the materials by symbolically infusing them with energy. In 1967, he embarked on an association with several artists, including Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Gilberto Zorio, which became a loosely defined art movement labeled Arte Povera [more] by critic and curator Germano Celant. This movement was marked by an anti-elitist aesthetic, incorporating humble materials drawn from everyday life and the organic world in protest of the dehumanizing nature of industrialization and consumer capitalism. Iin 1968, Merz adopted one of his signature motifs, the igloo. It was constructed with a metal skeleton and covered with fragments of clay, wax, mud, glass, burlap, and bundles of branches, and often political or literary phrases in neon tubing. He participated in significant international exhibitions of Conceptual, Process, and Minimalist Art, such as Arte povera + azioni povera at the Arsenali dellAntica Repubblica, Amalfi, and Live in Your Head: When Attitudes Become Form at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1968; the latter exhibition traveled to Krefeld, Germany, and to London. In 1970, Merz began to utilize the Fibonacci formula of mathematical progression within his works, transmitting the concept visually through the use of the numerals and the figure of a spiral. By the time of his first solo museum exhibition in the United States, at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1972, he had also added stacked newspapers, archetypal animals, and motorcycles to his iconography, to be joined later by the table, symbolic as a locus of the human need for fulfillment and interaction. Merz often responds to the specific environment of his exhibitions by incorporating materials indigenous to the area as well as adjusting the scale of the work to the site. His first solo European museum exhibition took place at the Kunsthalle Basel in 1975, and his most recent retrospective was organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1989. Merz works in Turin, where he resides with his wife, artist Marisa Merz.

While studying medicine at Turin University, Mario Merz (b. 1925, Milan) was arrested for his antiFascist activities. In prison, he began making 'continuous' drawings, without lifting pencil from paper. This idea of organic creation is central to Merz's works, evident for example in his neon pieces handwritten numbers or words where electricity circulates in a continuous flow of energy. Unlike the other Arte Povera artists, who rarely referred directly to politics, Merz used political slogans in some of these metaphorical works. In 1968, he produced Giap's Igloo, the first of the dome-shaped temporary constructions that have become his signature works. Made of dried mud, it bears in neon letters on its crown the famous statement of Vietcong General Vo Nguyen Giap: 'If the Enemy Masses his Forces he Loses Ground, if he Scatters he Loses Strength'. Merz's Igloos express his pre-occupation with the fundamentals of human existence: shelter, food and man's relationship to nature. Each of these archetypal dwellings is built specifically for the exhibition in which it is shown, the materials metal tubing, glass, sand bags, branches, stone, newspapers - often being indigenous to the location. Many of his works refer to the principles of the Fibonacci series, an exponential mathemat-ical sequence that underlies the growth patterns of natural life. In 1971, Merz began a series of photographs applying the Fibonacci series to social groupings. Fibonacci Naples, 1970, for example, consists of ten photographs of factory workers on their lunch break, building from a solitary person to a group of fifty-five.

Unreal City, Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Nine, 1989

Crocodile in the Night 1979

oil paint, metallic paint, charcoal,neon light tubes and electrical elements 274.0 x 435.0 cm Purchase, 1982

Igloo (Tenda di Gheddafi) (Igloo - Qaddafi's Tent), 1968-81

Architettura fondata dal tempo - Architettura sfondata dal tempo (Time-Based Architecture - Time-Debased Architecture), 1981

Manica Lunga da 1 a 987 (Manica Lunga from 1 to 987), 1990

Igloo con albero (Igloo with Tree), 1968-1969

Mario Merz Ensemble

MERZ, Mario "Il tramonto nella tazzina" 1979 Mixed media (acrlico y nen) sobre lienzo 410 x 283 cm
Mario Merz Igloo 1971 Steel tubing, neon tubing, wire mesh, transformer, C-clamps 39 3/8 x 78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in. overall

Courtesy Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; T.B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 2001 Photo: Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Mario Merz: La Goccia d`Acqua (Der Wassertropfen), 1987, Metallrhren, Glas, Neonzahlen, 80 x 2640 x 445 cm

Mario Merz

Il Re e la Regina

Fibonacci,1975

Igllo di pietre sulla picola Fluda, Kassel

Installation, 1982

Marisa Merz
Marisa Merz (Turin, 1931), starts with an idea that originates outside the art realm and proceeds endow it with an unmodified artistic identity. At the end of the 1960s her art began to implement the traditionally feminine practice of knitting in a nontraditional way. Merz uses copper wire to obtain square or triangular shapes, which she then uses to build fragile structures that are installed in open spaces, such as beaches, or are agglomerated into figures mounted onto walls. She also utilizes natural materials with mutating states, such as wax or salt, to create allusive installations whose settings rest in the metaphoric space of artistic creation. From the beginning of the 1980s Merz has often dedicated herself to portraiture, sometimes self-portraiture, realized both in pencil or ink drawings and in dried clay, which is left uncured and unpainted. The work in the Castellos collection, Untitled (1985), is a portrait defined with color and graphic marks with a dominating light blue. The markings actually comprise a strongly synthesized form of

writing; the color does not respect the laws of naturalism; and the images maintain only a few essential indications that allow them to be recognized as solemn, vaguely archaic figures. The marks and colors are symptomatic of an emotional vividness that renders the image estranged and infuses it with an unsettling atmosphere. This sense of alienation is accentuated by the way in which the work was madeby the competition between the elements that present the portrait yet are integral parts of the work itself. The paper bearing the image is framed and then draped over a structure similar to a console (actually part of some metal scaffolding), evoking a domestic environment. A glass pane is then laid over the drawing. None of these elements is joined to the other; everything is simply placed there as if in a temporary arrangement. The objects used by the artist do not come from the world of art but rather everyday life, and they do not possess definable aesthetic characteristics. It is their combination, rather, that reveals a new aesthetic sense; the work seems to pose questions about the most common matters in order to draw out a sense of artistry with all of its life force. - GV The more recent Untitled (1997) is formed by the outline of a violin covered in wax and by a lead tub that constitutes a resonant box. A jet of water crosses over the instrument, as if giving it a voice, causing it to emit soft music. A continually renewing system, the installation seems to invite silence and listening, suggesting an ideal balance of newfound unity.
The works of Marisa Merz (b. 1925, Turin) display many of the fundamental themes and preoccupations associated with Arte Povera. These include an interest in flowing, organic forms, a concentration on subjectivity and the visionary, the embracing of 'low' types of art such as craft, and the relationship between art and life. 'There has never been any division between my life and my work', she has said. She often adapts traditional practices associated with female domesticity, such as knitting, and the idea of home as a private, intimate and feminine realm is central to her work. In 1966, for example, she created the spectacular work Untitled (Living Sculpture), both for her own house and as a gallery installation. It was made from thin strips of shiny aluminium, clipped together and suspended from the ceiling to form great coiled and spiralling forms, creating a magical environment. In 1968, she began knitting nylon or copper threads into simple geometric shapes to fit her body. Little Shoes, 1970, for instance, is a nylon-thread sculpture made for her feet. Bea, 1968, is another knitted work, spelling out her daughter's name. These delicate, web-like works have been installed both along gallery walls and in external locations such as beaches. Outdoors, they appear to grow like plants or grip on like living creatures. This inter-weaving of threads into a complicated network implies both an obsessive energy and ideas of communication and interconnection. Merz herself has spoken of an intense excitement running through these threads.

Marisa Merz Fontana (Fountain) 1992

Senza titolo (Untitled), 1985

Senza titolo (Untitled), 1997

Senza titolo (Untitled), 1979

Senza titolo,1977

Senza titolo,1978

Senza titolo,1966

Senza titolo,1989

venecijanski bienale, 1980.

By one of the crossroads at the entrance to the historic town centre of Colle di Val dElsa, there is a construction with a round base that once functioned as a cistern. It is no longer in use but the suggestive nature of the space has remained intact over the centuries; indeed, the cistern resembles a kind of miniature military fort, difficult to gain access to, designed to protect something valuable inside. It has an austere presence, the silence partially broken by noises from surrounding houses. It is not by chance that Marisa Merz should have settled on this space for her intervention; she has often produced works for open-air spaces, choosing unusual locations like a beach or arranging clusters of figures on walls. Here she has managed to take account of the context of the work, highlighting the spirit of the place and choosing to focus in particular on the door, a physical but above all symbolic element connecting inside and outside, what is immediately visible and what remains hidden and constitutes the real essence of things.

'testa', 1983 by marisa merz

'testa rosa', 1989 by marisa merz

Michelangelo Pistoletto was born on June 23, 1933, in Biella, in the

Piedmont region of Italy. He worked under his father in Turin from 1947 to 1958 as a painting restorer. In the 1950s he made figurative paintings, including many self-portraits. Pistoletto first participated in the Biennale di San Marino in 1959. His first solo exhibition was held the next year, at the Galleria Galatea, Turin. In his self-portraits of 196061, he covered his canvases with grounds of metallic paint, and subsequently replaced the canvas completely with polished steel. His photosilkscreened images of people, life-size, on reflective steel were intended both to integrate the environment and the viewer into his work and to question the nature of reality and representation. Mirrored surfaces would recur throughout Pistolettos oeuvre. The Oggetti in meno (Minus Objects) of 196566 are among his earliest sculptural works. In 1966 his first solo exhibition in the United States was held at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. In 1967 he won a grand prize at the Bienale of So Paulo and the Belgian Art Critics Award. Also in 1967 Pistoletto began to pursue Performance [more] art, an interest that would expand over his career to encompass work in film, video, and theater. With the Zoo group, which he founded, Pistoletto presented collaborative "actions" from 1968 until 1970. Meant to unify art and daily existence, these performances took place in his studio, in public institutions such as schools and theaters, and on the streets of Turin and other cities. Pistolettos employment of everyday materialsas in the Venere degli stracci (Venus of the Rags) of 1967, a copy of a classical sculpture of Venus set against a huge mound of old clothes and fabricsaligned him with Arte Povera [more]. Since 1967, when the term Arte Povera was coined, Pistolettos work has been included in gallery and museum exhibitions devoted to that trend. He withdrew his work from the 1968 Venice Biennale in response to student demonstrations at the event, which were among the countless protests that took place across Italy that volatile year. Pistolettos book Luomo nero, il lato insopportabile was published in 1970 by Rumma Editore, Salerno. In 1974 he passed a ski instructors exam and was spending much of his time in the mountain town of San Sicario. In the late 1970s and early 1980s he made sculpture that drew from art-historical precedents, working, from the early 1980s, in polyurethane and marble. In 197980 he presented performance works in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia, as well as in San Francisco. Among his theater works are Opera Ah, presented in 1979 in the piazza of Corniglia, and Anno uno (Year One), performed in 1981 at Romes Teatro Quirino. Retrospectives of Pistolettos art have been presented at Palazzo Grassi, Venice (1976), Palacio de Cristal, Madrid (1983), Forte di Belvedere, Florence (1984), Galleria Nazionale dArte Moderna, Rome (1990), and Museu dArt Contemporani de Barcelona (2000). His work has been included in major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1966, 1976, 1978, 1984, 1986, and 1993) and Documenta in Kassel (1968, 1982, 1992, and 1997). Pistoletto announced the creation of Progetto Arte in 1994, a program intended to unite the diverse strands of human civilization through art. To further this goal, he established Cittadellarte, Fondazione Pistolettoa center for the study and promotion of creative activityin Biella in 1998. Pistoletto lives and works in Turin.

Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933, Biella) began his career as a painter in the mid-1950s and a decade later became one of the key figures of Arte Povera, both as an artist and as a spokesperson. He was widely known in the early 1960s for his 'Mirror Paintings', in which life-size images of the human figure, usually shown in arrested action, were applied to a polished stainless-steel back-ground as if it were a canvas. Breaking down traditional notions of figurative art, these works reflected the surroundings and the spectator and so made them part of the work, linking art and life, the past and the present in an ever-changing spectacle. These concerns remained central to Pistoletto in works such as Ball of Newspapers (Globe), 1966-8, a 2-metre globe made of newspapers, which embodied the constantly shifting, newsworthy events of life over a two-year period, and which he rolled through the streets of Turin. In 1965, he began his series Minus Objects, furniture-like sculptures that, instead of being yet more objects in a commodity-obsessed society, offered rewarding psychological and physical experiences for each individual viewer. Lunch Painting, 1965, for example is a cross between a sculpture, a painting and a picnic table and chairs. Pistoletto has also worked on collaborative performances, such as The End of Pistoletto, 1967, in which actors moved in a mirrored space, and The Zoo, 1968-70, a series of collective actions involving his friends, which combined music and theatre and took place in streets, galleries and theatres throughout Europe.

On left : Persone nere (Black People), 1984 On right: Venere degli stracci (Venus in Rags), 1967

Scatoloni-Dittico (Large Boxes - Diptych), 1962-73

Onda di bronzo (Bronze Wave), 1982-83

In primo luogo (in the first place), 1997

L'architettura dello specchio (Architecture of the Mirror), 1990

Michelangelo Pistoletto Palla di giornali (Mappamondo) (Ball of newspapers [Globe]) 1966-68 Pressed newspapers, iron 70 7/8 x 70 7/8 x 70 7/8 in. overall Private collection; Courtesy Lia Rumma, Naples

Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, Italia 1933 - ) Broken Mirror, 1978

"I Am The Third" Series

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO, I fotografi, 1973

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO, VENERE DEGLI STRACCI, 1967

MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO, Segno Arte, 1992

Michelangelo Pistoletto, Neither, 1977

Michelangelo Pistoletto 27.1. - 29.3.2000

Museu dArt Contemporani de Barcelona - MACBA, Plaza dels ngels 1, 08001 Barcelona Spain This retrospective exhibition ranged in content from a pair of self-portraits painted in 1960, in which the images are framed inside a gold and a silver surface, respectively, through to the artists most recent interventions, grouped under the title Progetto Arte, an initiative designed to provoke reflection on the state of art today. In other words, the exhibition traced a narrative thread which run from the image of the artist, and itsinitial pictorial representation, to the figure of the artist as the advocate of a different way of thinking and living in the world today. Pistoletto believes that now, at the start of the third millennium, the time has come for artists to take the responsibility for establishing links between the different branches of human activity, from politics to economics, from science to religion, in order to "eliminate distances while preserving differences", to quote the artist himself.

Piccolo monumento

Uomo di schiena

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Construzione, distruzione, 1966-1996

Sfera sotto il letto

Pino Pascali 1935 Bari, Italien - 1968 Rom, Italien Like Mario Merz his compatriot Pino Pascali, who unfortunately died young, also belongs to Arte Povera and expressed the idea of incorporating life into art even more strongly. In happenings and performances he related his works to the respective sites and to his own body as a kind of extension of his work. This theatrical aspect is particularly obvious in his >Blue Widow Spider<, a work from the threshold of an imaginary world that manifests its affinity to the stage by its large size. Blue rather than black, with six legs instead of eight, large instead of small - Pascali uses such alienation effects not to provoke us but to reopen a seemingly lost dimension to us: childhood, the primitively simple, a different and imaginary world.
Having studied in Naples, Pino Pascali (b. 1936, Bari, d. 1968, Rome) moved to Rome in 1955, where he learned scene painting and set design at the Academy of Art. He worked in television and film advertising for a while, but in 1965 held his first solo exhibition, where he showed colourful canvases. The following year he exhibited a group of his 'fake sculptures'. Utilising some of the techniques of theatrical set building, these shaped-canvas works play on the relationship between illusion and reality. They seem to be solid sculptures, but they are essentially paintings; they appear as elegant abstract forms, but have disconcerting echoes of animals, plants or landscapes. The Decapitation of Sculpture, 1966 for example, hints at a rhinoceros with a severed horn, and Mare, 1966 suggests an area of choppy sea, but is stylised to the point of abstraction. Pascali soon became a star of Rome's art world, producing, bright Pop Art-inspired works in many different styles and media. He used old cans, plastic brushes, fake fur, coloured water, hay, dirt, and even appeared in a film recording the 'planting' of loaves of bread on a beach. One of his most spectacular works is Bridge, 1968 an 8-metre-long 'rope' bridge, made of steel-wool scouring pads, which was strung across the gallery. All these works ignore the boundaries between abstract and figurative art, and revel in the playful transformation of materials. Pascali died tragically, following a motorcycle accident at the age of thirty-two.

Pino Pascali La decapitazione della scultura (The decapitation of sculpture) 1966 Canvas on wooden structure 40 x 36 x 170 in. overall Private collection

Pino Pascali
Drawings, 1959-1964 Unfortunately European space is very different from American space: rather than belonging to action it belongs to a reflection on action, you see? What the Americans can permit themselves is the luxury of taking something and nailing it on to the canvas and a painting emerges; or take a comic strip and re-do it and the

painting is a painting because in their gestures they summarized historically what truly is their civilization, the most advanced from a technological point of view. Our civilization, instead, is a civilization which on a technological level is behind with respect to the American so that a direct action between man and material is made (...)" "I try to do what I like to do; ultimately that's the only system that works for me. I don't think a sculptor does hard work: he plays, the way a painter plays, the way anyone who does what he likes plays. Playing games is not just what children do; everything is a game, isn't it? Some people work: childhood games turn into adolescent games, adolescent games turn into the ones in your adult life, but they're still games. At a certain point you are in an office, if it's unpleasant work you'll want a fast car to go out and take a ride in, and that's precisely because you have a job you don't like, and so you put everything into it. Not in the sense of playing for its own sake, but it's another matter, in the sense of man's normal activities, right? Children play seriously too; it's a learning system, their games are set up to experiment with things, to find out about things and at the same time to go beyond them (...)" 1. Re Art (King Art), from Cookies Maggiora, 1964 pencil on paper - 11" x 8.75" (cm 27.3 x20.2) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 9) 2. I Posteros (The Descendants), from Sigla Intermezzo, 1961-62 pencil and pastel on paper - 8.34" x 11" (cm. 20 x 26.9) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 2) 3. Pastore (Shepherd), 1962-63 pencil and pastel on paper - 11" x 8.34" (cm. 20 x 26.9) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 25) 4. Uomini della preistoria (Men of Prehistory), 1963 pastel on paper - 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 4) 5. Mucca da Un dolce sogno (Cow from A Sweet Dream), Torrone Alberti, 1962-63 mixed media on acetate and collage on paper 9.75" x 11.75" (cm. 22 x 28) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 21) 6. Cosacco (Cossack), 1962-1963 ink on acetate - 9.75" x 11.75" (cm. 22 x 28) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 22) 7. Untitled, from Sigla Intermezzo, 1962 tempera on paper - 13.5" x 9.75" (cm. 23 x 32) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 8) 8. Studi (Studies), 1962 mixed media on cardboard - 10.25" x 14.25" (cm. 23.4 x 34.5) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 18) 9. Personaggi (Characters), 1962-63 ink on acetate - 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 17) 10. Farfalla (Butterfly), 1964 pastel on acetate and paper - 10" x 14" (cm. 19 x 27)

11. Scena (Scene), from Gelati Algida Coppa Olimpia (Algida Ice Cream Olympia's Cup), 1958-59 collage on paper - 9" x 11.5" (cm. 22 x 28) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 15) 12. Al Cafone da I Killer (Al Cafone from The Killers), Gelati Algida, 1961 collage on paper and mixed media on acetate 10" x 13.5" (cm. 23.8 x 33.8) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 10) 13. Johnny Sciccoso, from Gelati Algida, 1961 pencil on paper - 8.75" x 5.25" (cm. 20 x 13) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 12) 14. I Killer (The Killers), 1961 pencil on paper - 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) 15. Al Cafone, from Gelati Algida, 1961 pencil on paper - 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 20) 16. I Killer (The Killers), from Gelati Algida, 1961 pencil on paper - 11" x 8.25" (cm. 27 x 20.4) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 13) 17. Gran Generale - Cavaliere (Grand General - Horseman), 1963 pastel on paper - 9.34" x 13.75" (cm. 23 x 33) 18. Personaggi (Characters), 1962-63 collage on paper and acetate - 11" x 8.5" (cm. 28 x 22) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 24) 19. Macchinette (Small Cars), 1962-63 magic marker, ink and pencil on paper 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 7) 20. Il Meccanico (The Mechanic), 1963 pencil on paper - 8.75" x 11" (cm. 20.3 x 27) Published on Pino Pascali, Disegni per la Pubblicit, Galleria Arco d'Alibert, Rome 1991 (page 23)

Pino Pascali anni '60 tecnica mista Pino Pascali anni '60

tecnica mista

Pino Pascali
Die blaue Witwe / Blue Widow Spider / La vedova blu 1968, Acryl-Fell auf Holzarmatur / Acrylic fur over a wooden frame Leihgabe sterreichische Ludwig-Stiftung (seit 1981

Giulio Paolini
Born in Genoa in 1940, Giulio Paolini began making art in 1960, the year in which he created Geometric Design, an inked canvas that emphasizes the pure squareness of its surface. This analytical intent, which turned to instruments and locations of artistic practice, emerges in all of Paolinis art, and is based as much on the exhibition of the primary materials of painting (canvas and stretchers, paint cans, color samples) as on the investigations relative to the exhibition space and to the artist as the user of pictorial language. From here Paolinis investigations began to delve into the past, to the function art has had throughout the course of history: John Watches Lorenzo Lotto, from 1967, inaugurated a series of quotations that the artist has incorporated into his work, both through photographic reproduction and the use of plaster casts of classical sculpture. In the 1970s Paolinis work took the form of complex installations that were almost theatrical in size. Comprising canvases, drawings, plaster casts, reproductions, and common objects, the installations reflected on the classical ideal as offering a sense of completeness that the contemporary conscience can only grasp in a fragmentary fashion. Thus the classical becomes a grand metaphor, one that speaks to us of the state and role of the artwork and its creator today. The installation Lucrezios House (1981-84) is part of a cycle of works begun in 1981 that were inspired by the labyrinth drawn on a pillar of the so-called House of the Tragic Poet, also known as Lucrezios House, in Pompeii. The mythical labyrinth and the house, which was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, moved Paolini to realize

different installations that suggest the two original sites in the same way his work has always evoked the concept of originality: as an impossibility. The evocation comes about through the presentation of two images, the labyrinth and the poet, which places their essential precariousness (they are plaster casts) on an equal scale with their significant insufficiency. The image of the labyrinth rediscovered in Pompeii is carved on a broken plaster slab to indicate that the myths significance, while quite well known to the population of Pompeii, is today lost to us. The poets face, therefore, is only an iconographic indication: it is a copy of an angels head made between 1595 and 1654 by Alessandro Algardi, a sculptor from Bologna. In two vitrines we find the entire white cast on similarly white pedestals. In the other two cases we have fragments wrapped in purple-red cloth, which accompanies every element and which, in one case, falls to the base. Algardi, a student of Ludovico Carracci and a follower of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, was also a restorer of classical statues, and the call to Greco-Roman classicism is evident in his art. We therefore have, on one hand, the image of Greek myth re-elaborated in Roman style and, on the other, the classical artistic ideal, redesigned in a Baroque mannerboth of which share the same origins. The artist has noted that we do not know what antiquity is, so the findings we possess are read using presumptive processes that give us a misguided sense of completeness. The ruinsthat is, the fragmentsallude to the unsolvable enigma that the classical remains today, just as it was three centuries ago. The labyrinth thus becomes a metaphor for art, as Paolini himself has declared. All of Paolinis work is, in a certain way, a labyrinth, for he defines the art world as a closed place that opens in different directions, only to return to the point of origin, posing and reposing the same question: what is art, and what do you know, having experienced it?

Until 1960 trained as a set-designer and graphic designer, then preoccupation with art and collages in order to analyze artistic means as well as to examine linguistic systems. The first documented work, Geometric Design, stems from 1960. Since 1965 Paolini has picked art and the history of art and their possibilities of conveying message as a central theme. In 1964 his first individual exhibition took place in the Galleria La Salita in Rome, since then he has been represented in numerous individual and group exhibitions in Italy and other countries. In 1967 he was a participant of the first exhibition of Arte Povera in the Galleria Bertesca in Genova and he took part, inter alia, in several Documenta-exhibitions in Kassel as well as in the Biennale di Venezia in 1970 and 1997. Paolini is concentrated on the phenomenon of seeing, touching themes such as space, time, perspective or the cultural conditioning of author and observer. In 1970 he started to study photography.

Since 1972 he has been creating groups of works, titled Idem, which refer to each other. In the course of the seventies he looked into the classical-mythological symbolism through photography and classical sculptures in plaster, as they question the meaning of art, originality and reproduction. Since the beginning of the eighties his conceptual installments have become more bodily and multi-layered by weaving in architectonic elements, artificial sources of light and video. His philosophical and critical essays, which have been published in diverse magazines since 1975, also appeared as independent publications, e.g. Idem (1975) with an introduction by Italo Calvino, Contemplator Enim, L'arte e lo spazio (1983) and Lezioni di pittura. In 1996 he published La verit (Einaudi).
Giulio Paolini (b. 1940, Genoa) is seen as the most cerebral or conceptual of the Arte Povera artists. His work is principally concerned with an exploration of the nature of art. Untitled, 1962-3, for example, is one of a number of works made from 1961 onwards, in which he presented the materials used in art as the work itself. Consisting of a blank canvas inside three frames, it takes art both as the subject and object of the work. Similarly, another piece of the same date juxtaposes two blank canvases, one seen from the back. Paolini's subsequent work includes complex and visually spectacular installations, often using plaster casts of classical sculpture. The Apotheosis of Homer, 1970-1, is a complex, layered work about representation and interpretation. Displayed on thirty-two music stands, and accompanied by a soundtrack of the artist's voice, are photographs of famous actors playing historical figures. Paolini is also interested in the process of perception and the experience of vision. Young Man Looking at Lorenzo Lotto, 1967, for instance, is an actual-size photographic reproduction of Lotto's Portrait of a Young Man, 1505. The title of the work shifts the emphasis from the traditional notion of the artist's gaze regarding his subject, to the steady stare of the sitter himself, gazing back at the artist. We the viewers complete the cycle of looking. 'I wanted to restore the moment in which Lotto executed the painting, and transform, for a moment, everyone who looks at the photo-graphic reproduction into Lorenzo Lotto' said Paolini.

Casa di Lucrezio (House of Lucretius), 1981-84

Il cielo e dintorni (The Sky and Surroundings), 1988

Sipario e Fondale per il Teatro del Castello di Rivoli (Curtain and Backdrop for the Castello di Rivoli Theatre), 1997

Senza titolo (Untitled), 1964

1/25, 1965

Astrolabe (Astrolabio), 1967

L'Altra Figura 1985

plaster and pedestals 64.0 x 40.0 cm (each) Purchase, 1987

Giulio Paolini. Lora X Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Castello 5252

"Senza Titolo" 1981 tecnica mista su tela cm 70x100

Prote I II III, 1971

Giovanni Anselmo
Born in Borgofranco d'Ivrea, Turin, in 1934, Giovanni Anselmo has been a practicing artist since 1965. His intent is to expose the energy inherent in the material from which a work of art is made. Working in thematic cycles, such as the Particular works-projections of the series' title into space-Anselmo attempts to bring general concepts of the infinite or invisible to the attention of the viewer. He relies on the force of gravity to represent its own overcoming and, with an image or mark, put forth an experience of the infinite. Anselmo's overseas theme appeared for the first time in 1979. For the artist, it is a place beyond our geographical world, the site where, centuries ago, the mineral that gives us the blue pigment "overseas" was dug from the earth and imported here. At the same time, the name suggests the idea of "elsewhere," a dimension where spacetime coordinates are substituted by others that we can form only through the act of thinking. Breath is made up of two long iron girders separated by a sea sponge. It is precisely due to this degree of diversity between the two materials that the work functions. The sponge is a natural element with an unpredictable shape, soft and malleable; the iron girders are an industrial product, geometrically squared, rigid, heavy, and compact. Placed in the space between the two girders, the sponge, able to expand and contract thanks to the alveoli where seawater flows in and out, conveys the idea of air in a lung, to which the work's title explicitly refers. Despite its combination of such different materials, the work also prompts us to consider their affinity; in fact, iron also breathes, and the subatomic particles it is made of are dynamic. The real difference between the two elements is that the iron girder is infinitely denser. Anselmo speaks to us of the energy that binds and harmonizes even elements of such seemingly diverse natures.

Towards the overseas is part of a series whose themes can also be found in Anselmo's earlier work. The gray stone becomes "lighter" when placed near the "overseas," thereby provoking a mutation of its empirical properties. In the series in the Castello di Rivoli's collection, the granite is not shown in blocks, as in his previous works, but in a large triangular sheet with its edges left rough. The sheet is placed vertically and leans toward the wall, but it is held in balance by a steel cable. This position alludes to the loss of weight, demonstrating the transmutation of the material's base properties as they are attracted "towards the overseas." The stone triangle's vertex aims for a small, dense blue rectangle painted on the wall, a metonymic representation of infinity . . . but doesn't touch it.

Giovanni Anselmo (b. 1934, Borgofranco d'Ivrea), divides his time between Turin and the volcanic island of Stromboli. It was while walking on Mount Stromboli at dawn in 1965 that he was suddenly struck by the realisation that he was merely a tiny detail in the vast continuum of universal energy. This epiphany was to inspire his many works investigating the finite and the infinite, the microcosm and the macrocosm, and the elemental laws and forces of nature - gravity, tension, magnetism and energy. A wide range of organic and inorganic materials including vegetables, water, electricity, granite, iron and plastic are brought together in combinations that strikingly demonstrate these forces. In Torsion, 1968, for example, a leather loop set in a concrete block is tightly twisted and fixed in place with a wooden bar. This work literally traps energy. Similarly, in Untitled, 1967, a large sheet of Perspex is held taut in a curved shape by an iron fastening. Another presentation of tension and gravity is provided by Untitled, 1968 - also known as Eating Structure. In this work, a head of lettuce is squashed between a large standing block of granite and a smaller one, secured by a copper wire. If the lettuce is allowed to dry out, the wire will lose tension and the small stone will fall. The sculpture must therefore be constantly 'fed' with new lettuces. Anselmo also works with artist's books, drawings, photography and slide projections.

As a key member of the Arte Povera circle of the early 1960s, Giovanni Anselmo qualifies as an elder statesman of sculpture. Since the 1960s, Anselmo has continued to produce a striking body of work at each and every turn in his intellectual rigor to the sparse yet poetic foundations of Arte Povera. One of the hallmarks of Anselmo's work is the the most elemental materials signify our understanding of the world from its most basic to its most complex relation steadily refined his ability of inserting the poetics of geology into the particularities of a given architectural space. Hi make it impossible to speak of the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture. For the past decade, A using granite, and pigment applied directly to walls and windows to further blur the boundaries between genres. Co still lyrical, these installations have been nothing short of a formal tour de force.

"I, the world, things, life - we are points of energy, and it is not necessary to crystallize these points as it is to keep t alive, functioning in our life." In the case of this statement, made by the artist in 1969, the words "open, alive, functio equated with an artistic restlessness which has made his associations with any particular movement somewhat mis his initial lines of inquiry were formed in the early 60s, Anselmo has continued to produce a striking body of work at turn in his career. In addition to exhibiting several older works, The Society has invited Anselmo to continue his inve creating a site specific work using the unique architectonics of this space.

Grigi che si alleggeriscono verso oltremare

Respiro

Senza titolo, 1988.

Breathing, 1969

Towards Ultremarine,1984

Senza titolo (Untitled), 1967

Neon nel cemento (Neon in Cement

L'Aura Della Pittura, 1996

Marian Goodman Gallery

WORK DATE: CATEGORY: MATERIALS: 1996 Installations Acrylic, granite, iron

Senza Titolo, 1991

Kewenig Galerie
WORK DATE: CATEGORY: MATERIALS: 1991 Sculptures Stones, canvases, steel cable, slipknot

untitled, 1990 Granite (Verde Aosta), Canvas, Steel Cable 200 x 140 x 10 cm

Lato destro (Right Side), 1968 cibachrome 16.5" x 13.5" (cm. 32 x 22,5)

Giovanni Anselmo, Senza titolo, (Untitled)," 1968, granite, copper, wire, lettuce 28 x 13 1/16 x 9 1/16. Photo: Paolo Mussat Sartor.

Granit Labrador clair et rouge Santiago, toile, cble, d'acier, noeud coulant, 1991

Alighiero Boetti

Alighiero Boetti's work originated in the 1960s, during the years of experimentation that would give a new definition of artistic practice in Italy. He participated in the collective that founded Arte Povera, developing his own style in an autonomous direction that stressed the distance between the idea and the execution of a work. His first solo show was in 1967 in Turin, at the Christian Stein Gallery. The works in the collection, dated 1966, were shown on this occasion. These pieces are presented as autonomous inventions that tend toward a presence both neutral and independent of the space in which they are shown. With both Ladder and Chair, beginning with a normal ladder and common wooden chair, Boetti affixed pieces similar to the originals' individual elements in order to continue the objects' natural lines. The result is a pair of three-dimensional objects conceived as designs loaded with potential energy. Stack, on the other hand, was based on "individual perceptual experience unto itself," according to Boetti. It is composed of a series of Eternit ties, arranged by the artist into a tall parallelepiped. Zig Zag is composed of a cloth of colored stripes positioned within a metallic structure. The title refers tautologically to the movement the structure imposes on the cloth and the optical effect this produces. Mancorrente m.2 was also part of Boetti's debut show. It was realized with the intention of inducing a determined psychological reaction in the spectator. Constructed like a simple railing made of a chrome bar, the work was, according to Boetti, destined to "render the situation theatrical."

In 1971, following his own nomadic instinct, Boetti left for his first trip to Afghanistan, which would eventually become his second home. In Kabul, Boetti stitched together Map, his first monumental version of a map of the world in which every nation is indicated by its flag. As with all of the pieces in this series (which continued up to the artist's death), the sewing was done by Afghan women. Italian text runs along the borders of the map in the permanent collection, which is characterized by an extended blue background. The text's ending reads "between the sixteenth of december nineteen forty and the eleventh of june two thousand twenty-three alighiero boetti came to kabul at the time that pablo picasso was dying." It bears indications regarding when the tapestry was made alongside the hypothetical year of Boetti's death as well as a date that surely refers to the year of Picasso's demise.
Alighiero Boetti (b. 1940, Turin; d. 1994, Rome) worked with cement, cloth, electric light, wood and even the postal system. His array of techniques embraced embroidery, drawing, photocopying, printing, photography, construction and often involved collaboration with people both inside and outside the art world. With this diverse and democratic approach, he wanted to blur the boundaries between art and life, and to disseminate his art as widely as possible using the humblest of means. He rejected the strategies and materials of 'high' art in favour of 'low' forms such as craft and design. Yearly Lamp, 1966, for example, is simply a light bulb in a wooden box, which randomly switches itself on for eleven seconds each year. This work focuses both on the transform-ative powers of energy, and on the possibilities and limitations of chance - the likelihood of a viewer being present at the moment of illumination is remote. Boetti was fascinated by the relationship between chance and order, systems of classification, and many aspects of culture, particularly non-Western traditions and practices. This global vision is reflected in his best-known works - the series of embroidered maps of the world, made in collaboration with crafts-workers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here, the shape of each country is embroidered with the design of its national flag, vividly illustrating our world of fiercely demarcated individual nation states. As Boetti's works demonstrate, these boundaries are nevertheless involved in a constant process of flux and negotiation due to political events such as the reunification of Germany, or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Boetti disassociated himself from Arte Povera in the early 1970s.

Manifesto, 1967
watercolor on printed paper, mounted on canvas 381/2" x 271/2" (cm. 100x70)
signed and dated on the front Realized at the end of 1967 in an edition of 800 copies on colored paper (yellow, pink, green and white), the "Manifesto" lists the names of sixteen Italian artists, including the artists participating in the "Arte Povera" movement and Boetti himself. Next to each name there is a combination of eight symbols; the key to the symbols was deposited by the artist to a notary. Most of the copies were sent by mail to friends and other artists, and the remaining fifty were numbered, signed and exhibited in October of 1967 at Galleria Toselli in Milan. The Manifesto presented here is the unique hand-colored and one of the very first works dealing with what will be later categorized as "principles of order and linguistic systems". This work is the first of a series that will be the main street in which Boetti will focus his production, shedding light on the domain of linguistic systems and in particular individualized linguistic codes, in other words language which has been individually enciphered. All his work paraphrase questions about institutional culture, of the basic ways of communication, hence of language and of the genesis of language, subjectively invented linguistic codes and sign systems, language games, writing left-handed as a form of drawing and various compositional principles used in the applied arts, such as symmetry or mirror imaging. Therefore the Manifesto exhibited here is an incredible document that shows the genesis, from the very beginning, of all of Boetti's work laying the conceptual foundations for the many groups of works which he later started (the colored letters that we will find later on the embroideries, the cryptic code that will be later used by the artist in many of his works such as the Postal Works, or in classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World, or in the Tree of the Hours, among many others.)

Scala (Ladder), 1966 Sedia (Chair), 1966

Catasta (Pile), 1966

Zig-Zag, 1966

Zig Zag, 1966

Mancorrente m. 2 (Handrail m. 2), 1966

Mappa (Map), 1971-73

Iter-vallo, 1969. Iron and tissue paper, 37 x 37 inches. Collection Agata Boetti, Paris

Alighiero Boetti Legnetti colorati (Little colored sticks) 1968 Painted wood, rubber 57 elements: 8 x 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. each, 8 x 63 x 63 in. overall Private collection

Alighiero Boetti Aerei [Aeroplanes] 1977 Acquarello on paper mounted on linen Three panels: 55 1/8 x 39 2/5 in. each The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles Purchased with funds provided by The Acquisition and Collection Committee, 2000

Ordine e disordine
(Ordnung und Unordnung) 1977, Kugelschreiber auf Papier 100 x 210 cm

Per filo e per segno

(Nach Strich und Faden) 1992, Stickerei, 18,6 x 16,4 cm

Far quadrare tutto

(Alles viereckig machen) 1979, Stickerei, 23,3 x 25 cm

Da figura a veritas
(Von der Form zur Wahrheit) 1979, Stickerei, 23,2 x 24,5 cm

Tra se' e se' III

(Between One and One's self), 1986 mixed media on paper mounted on canvas 59 1/2" x 39 1/2 (cm. 150x100) As of 1977, Boetti used a drawing based on a series of photographs made by Gianfranco Gorgoni as a recurring image, always repeated twice and lined up to form a vertical axis. The drawing presented here is part of a series of works entitled Tra se' e se' (Between One and One's Self), that the artist made in 19861987 for an exhibition at Galleria Lucio Amelio in Naples in 1987 (this work is published on the catalogue). Within it, set along the vertical axes (between Alighiero and Boetti), are outlines of objects and forms in which color and writing alternate. I have worked much with the concept of order/disorder: by transforming order into disorder or certain disorder which was, in fact, the depiction of intellectual order. The thing is to know the rules of the game: he or she who does not know them will never recognize the order prevailing in things, just as someone who does not know the order of the stars will always see confusion, while an astronomer has a very clear view of those things. As regards these apparently antithetical conceptual pairs, I am of the opinion that each and every thing also contains its opposite. Therefore, it would be advantageous to have an outlook which reduces concepts to zero, spreads them out and unfolds them. Just as you can unfold a leaf of paper, so, too, you can order or mix up a pair or class of concepts, without ever privileging one of the two opposing notions. On the contrary, you will always find the one in the other, the order in disorder, the natural in the artificial, the shadow in the light, and vice versa. Perhaps the other side, that is the natural order of things is also structured as follows: everything moves in waves, and the waves are composed of mountains and valleys, intervals, pauses and silence

Untitled (January-December), 1986. Pencil on Paper mounted on board in 12 parts, 40 3/8 x 40 3/4 inches framed each

As a key player in the Arte Povera movement of the 1960s and 1970s, Alighiero e Boetti developed a distinct style grounded in cultural investigation and the creative concept. A range of his work, including drawings as well as his ongoing series, entitled Mappa, is currently at Chelseas Barbara Gladstone Gallery through March 27th. From the artists delicate weavings to his provocatively lifeless renderings of magazine covers, a sense of intimacy in each work is offered, and the otherwise distanced faces that stand as Boettis inspiration are transformed into the everyday individuals who bring color to his maps. To Boetti, a work is never complete without the final interpretation of the viewer. Being surrounded by his embroidered canvases is like stepping into the world of its craftsmen and joining in their message of unity and human spirit. With clear political motivations, Boetti outlined patterns that he then commissioned weavers in Afghanistan and Pakistan between 1971 and 1994. Creating a continuous historical series, Boettis canvases map not only the presence of the cultures they graph, but also the personalities who formed them. The works reference quilting, a traditional craft, employed by cultures worldwide for centuries as a forum for storytelling and cultural unity. Mappa coincides with similar embroidered works of energetically colored bodies, including Tutto, a work constructed in Peshawar in 1989. In each example, precise stitching fills the frame from corner to corner and implies a blending of borders between not only arms and legs but also individual and cultural differences. The strength behind Boettis vision clearly communicates using its medium as a vehicle of action. In Copertina,1986, a sequential piece documenting an international selection of magazine covers, the viewer is drawn into an examination of the standards of beauty and fame upheld throughout the world. Boettis work exposes and explains these conventions as artificial consturcts. Groupings of covers are portrayed in monochromic pencil on paper. Political and popular events are shown side by side, blurring the serious with the momentary and allowing the viewer to crate their own continuum of value and importance. The artists hand is steadily present, and, like in Mappa, the viewer is invited to witness the artists act of personal observation within the confines of documentary history. To Boetti, each work of art is a choice. Every stitch and line signifies a deliberate direction taken in a specific moment in time. His work is warm and quiet, drawing the viewer into worlds of compassion and craftsmanship. Through his work, faces, once impenetrable political and popular leaders, are interwoven with the intimacy of handmade maps. The viewer leaves serenely pondering a message of worldwide beauty and compassion.

Oggi e venerdi ventisette marzo millenovecentosettantre, 1963

Luciano Fabro
Since the beginning of his career Luciano Fabbro, born in Turin in 1936, has shown a specific interest in space as a communicative dimension, an interlaced context of relationships between external and internalized realities. His first works were glass structures playing with different transparencies and reflections and pieces consisting of iron tubing, which explored the environment by mediating how it is perceived. His interest in space subsequently pushed him to involve the spectator physically in a type of sensorial adventure. His work produces "tautology," pure observation rather than experience, as in Spatial Concept of 1967, in which a portion of the floor was covered by newspapers. Fabbro adopts widely recognizable images and then renders them void of their collective symbolic function. Road map of Italy, for example, was realized in various materials and located in space according to unexpected methodologies. The artist engages in a reflection on the linguistic specificity of sculpture through the use of canonical materials like marble or incongruous and innovative ones like glass, colored silk, canvas, and bronze. In more recent works he has developed environmental interventions through installations called Habitats, which he defines according to critical writings on the rules of classical representational perspective. Through such developments, the artist's reflections have opened up to considerations of the relationship between geometric and natural forms, with particular attention paid to the structure of the human body and the place of myth in our cultural origins. Paolo Uccello 1450-1989 (the date in the title refers to the time taken to develop the work) was presented in the open for the first time in 1985, on the occasion of a group show in a city park in Geneva. It is composed of two square frames, standard elements in metallic shelving, placed facing each other to suggest a virtual cube and then suspended in the air, like other works realized by the artist in the same period. A vertical metal bar has been attached to both frames, fixed to the centers of the two squares. Two other metal bars are attached to the first with a metal ring and fluctuate in the air, one horizontally, the other angled ahead. The virtual cube delineates a

perspective box wherein the coordinates are constituted by the bars and frames. That the coordinates fluctuate implies that what is defined by the box is inconclusive. By recalling Paolo Uccello and the date 1450, Fabbro indicates the possibility of violating the laws of perspective. 1450 is the date of Paolo Uccello's Noah frescoes in the Verde Cloister of Florence's Santa Maria Novella, a work in which the anomalies of perspective give way to fantastic and irrational visions. In Fabbro's work Euclid, the rule, exists side by side with Paolo Uccello, transgression. Its installation outside in the "world" implies that the rational thought emblematic of perspective must measure up to reality, made real in the wandering eye of the spectator.
Even in his earliest works, Luciano Fabro (b. 1936, Turin) was already dealing with fundamental Arte Povera themes such as the contrast between the man-made and nature, and the bringing together of organic and inorganic materials. He uses a diversity of media, sometimes in combination with performance, to examine a range of themes. Cloth, bed-sheets, garments and newspaper are often employed, for example, to look at aspects of the everyday, including domestic labour. Equally important are the flowing, sculptural qualities of these materials. His series of Habitats human-scaled structures and architectural interventions explore our perceptual experience and relationship with others. Similar themes are investigated through his use of mirrors. In 1968, Fabro began his series of Feet. These resemble the paws and claws of strange animals or birds, topped by long tubes of fine silk fabrics suggesting legs. Made in sumptuous materials such as carved marble, polished bronze, or hand-blown glass, they refute a simplistic interpretation of Arte Povera as an art of poor materials. Since Fabro wanted to reassert the importance of crafts-manship (traditionally deemed 'low' art) and sensuousness in art, he found these rich materials highly appropriate. In the same year, he began another series of sculptures portraying the familiar shape of Italy in different materials such as fur, gold, glass chips or lead. The use of an easily recognisable shape in these works allowed for a full concentration on their texture and tactility.

Road map of Italy, 1969

Italia carta stradale, 1969

Paolo Uccello, 1450-1989

Croce (Cross), 1965-1986

Attaccapanni (di Napoli) (Clothes-Stand - of Naples), 1976-1977

Luciano Fabro Italia d'oro (Golden Italy) 1971 Gilt bronze, steel cable 29 1/2 x 17 11/16 x 1 1/2 in. overall Courtesy the artist, Milan

Luciano Fabro, Sisyphus, 1994 marble, gold leaf, flour (flour may be substituted with other rolling materials)

This unusual work by Luciano Fabro is made from marble and flour. If you take a closer look you'll see that there is an image of a man on it. How did it get there? Fabro made this figure come alive in the flour by first carving the image into the large marble cylinder and then rolling the marble over the flour. But there's more. How this figure is made is also important in explaining the title and meaning of this sculpture. Sisyphus, who is the central figure of an ancient Greek myth, was banished to the underworld and condemned by the gods to forever roll an enormous boulder up a steep hill, only to have it plummet downward each time it reached the top. As in the legend, this action must be repeated in order for this sculpture to be made. But Fabro has added a twist. The figure in the flour is

actually a self-portrait of the artist, and so Fabro has linked the ongoing work of an artist to the eternal labors of Sisyphus. Luciano Fabro explains the nature of Arte Povera "In my case, when I produce a work, even today, my ambition is to do something very complex, but presented in a very simple way. Within this simplicity, you must be aware of the complexity. This is what arte povera is about."

La Germania 1984
steel, various metals, glass, plastic, electrical elements and sandbags 285.0 x 975.0 x 177.0 cm (installed)

Compute2, 1994. midim%tarski papir, pastel 41,5 x 29,8 cm

Ovaries 1988 Ofaie Itahian marble and stainless steel object: 75 x 11250 x 1500 mm sculpture
In his work Fabro explores the symbolism of many different aspects of reality. His work thus takes many different forms, depending on the materials he uses. The egg is a symbol of birth and creation and is one of the few images that he has used several times. This particular piece, 'Ovaries', exists in three versions all with the same title. Here, Fabro sets up a powerful contrast between steel cable and marble eggs, perhaps evoking artificial versus natural means of production. He also said that a fertilised egg is a symbol of both male and female. The white ovoids might also suggest spermatozoa swimming between the cables.

Edera, 1969

Italia cosa nostra,1968-1971

Macchie di Rorscharch, 1975

Gilberto Zorio

Gilberto Zorio was born September 21, 1944, in Andomo Micca, Italy. He entered Turins Accademia di Belle Arti in 1963 to study painting. However, he soon moved on to sculpture and had his first solo show of three-dimensional works in 1967 at the Galleria Sperone, Turin. Associated with the revolutionary Arte Povera [more] movement, Zorio exhibited in a number of the defining group shows of Arte Povera in 1967 and 1968. He was included in a group exhibition, Nine Young Artists: Theodoron Awards, at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1969. Around this time, Zorio embarked upon a series dealing with language, Per purificare le parole, a theme he would investigate through the early 1980s. In 1970, Zorio graduated from the Accademia and, in 1971, he began teaching at the Liceo Artistico, Turin. Zorios work emphasizes process and alchemy, exploring transformative natural phenomena like evaporation or oxidation and the effects wrought upon materials by these chemical interventions. He has always been preoccupied with the idea of energy. This focus led him to examine the properties of electricity, incorporating a lamp or incandescent tubes in some pieces. In other works, he adopted star and javelin formsboth archetypal constructs intimating energy. Zorio frequently employs fragile materials in his sculpture, creating giant stars from terra-cotta or perching Pyrex alembics containing liquid solutions upon slender steel javelins. He tends to suspend or balance these components in purposely precarious installations, suggesting the tensions and transience of the physical realm. In 1976, the Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, recognized Zorio with a significant exhibition. A mid-career retrospective of the artists work followed at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, in 1979. A monograph on Zorio was published in Italian in 1982. By 1984, he had started another series utilizing a primeval form, that of the canoe, which he made from assorted materials such as pitch or steel. The canoe, along with the star and javelin, became a recurrent motif in Zorios oeuvre. In 1985, the Kunstverein, Stuttgart, organized a major retrospective, which traveled in 1986 to the Muse National dArt Moderne, Paris; Centre dArt Contemporain, Geneva; and Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven. In 1992, an exhibition took place at the Centro per lArte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy. Zorio lives in Turin.Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and in 1985 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In the 1980s, Turrell created dark pieces in which light is reduced to barely perceptible levels. The artist lives in Flagstaff, Arizona, and

Star (To Purify Words), 1980. Terra-cotta and metal, 195 inches diameter. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Exxon Corporation Purchase Award with additional funds contributed by Sonnabend Gallery, New York. 82.2921.a-.z.

Gilberto Zorio exhibited his seminal work Pink-Blue-Pink in a Turin art gallery in 1967, just prior to his association with the Arte Povera [more] group. Consisting of a concrete basin filled with cobalt chloride (which perpetually changes color in response to shifting levels of humidity in the room), the work reveals much about Zorios concerns as an artist as well as his place within the development of contemporary Italian art. In art-historical terms, Pink-Blue-Pink refers to the works of the Italian enfant terrible Piero Manzoni, who used cobalt chloride in some of his radical wall pieces (known as Achromes) in order to redefine painting and its traditional role as a conveyor of predetermined meanings. Pink-Blue-Pink marks a continuation of the attempt to reconfigure arts role in society by demonstrating its essential malleability. The emphasis on instability and metamorphoses apparent in Pink-Blue-Pink would become the leitmotif of Zorios subsequent artistic undertakings. Drawing upon the ancient science of alchemy for both form and content, he has created an oeuvre in which materials associated with chemical conversionsvessels containing water, alcohol, acids, and copper sulfate connected by suspended copper conduitshave become symbols for psychic and social transmutation. Zorios belief in the potential for cultural change through art is apparent in the title Per purificare le parole (To Purify Words), which he has applied to numerous sculptures and performances since 1968. Zorios notion that language can be emptied of all extraneous or corrupt facets finds a visual analogue in his work, which can be reduced to an essential symbolic typology that he combines and recombines. His fundamental aesthetic vocabulary consists of the star, which alludes to the metaphysical; the javelin, which represents mortal power; and the canoe, which suggests passage between the two realms. However utopian this project may seem, one remains aware that danger and violence constitute the underside of beauty and of harmony. Perhaps this is why Zorio pierced the broken terra-cotta star with a javelin in Star (To Purify Words).

The works of Gilberto Zorio (Andorno Micca-Vercelli, 1944), are unending fields of physical and mental energy. One of the protagonists of the Arte Povera group, since 1966 he has directed his investigations to process-related issues that make each work continually mutable. Setting up chemical or physical reactions, the artist brings his works into a life cycle to which he is present as a spectator. In Tenda (Tent), 1967, the evaporation of seawater and its consequent traces in the form of salt crystals delineates the dynamic of a natural landscape. The salt lake that forms at the viewer's eye level corresponds to the anthropocentric dimension that Zorio celebrates in his works. The artist views even the metal tubes on which the cloth rests in a human dimension, and their function is compared to that of the veins and skeleton.

Zorio has renewed the language of sculpture, freeing it from the fixity and heaviness with which it has traditionally been associated. In Colonna (Column), 1967, a tube of heavy asbestos cement rests on the inner-tire tube, almost as if it were an overturned column. The tube thus remains in precarious equilibrium, and its weight causes the inner tube to become very hard and the rubber to lose its flexibility. The juxtaposition of the two materials erodes the apparent nature of each, proposing an architectural image of elevation. The idea of ascent is also present in Macchia III (Stain III), 1968. The work is created by scattering liquid rubber on the ground, in concentric circles. Later the rubber is suspended in the space with cords whose tension is never definitive. The raising up of the sculpture corresponds to the artist's capacity to make tangible the way the work belongs to the space of the imagination, continually renewing the wonder of an unexpect edencounter.
The work of Gilberto Zorio (b. 1944, Andorno Micca) spans sculpture, installation, text and performance. It is characterised by his interest in natural processes involving alchemical transformation and the release of energy. Demonstrating elementary physical laws such as evaporation, pressure, the effects of heat and humidity, his works are metaphors for revolutionary human action and creative energy. In Column, 1967, a cylinder is filled with a cobalt chloride and plaster mix. With changes in humidity, this goes from pink to blue and back again. The rate of change depends on the number of people in the room. In To Purify Words, 1969, a long, soft tube containing alcohol is laid in a part circle on the floor, the two ends being raised up to head height. The spectator speaks into one end of the tube and the 'purified' words emerge at the other. An unexpected contrast between form and message occurs in Hate, 1969, in which a soft lead panel is violently imprinted with the word 'Odio' (Hate). The same sense of aggressive energy is present in Phosphorescent Fist, 1971, where a luminous wax hand, clenched into a fist, is periodically blasted with light so that it seems to punch out into the darkness. 'I have always tried to remove technological functions from all materials', Zorio has commented. 'My work with lights... came out of the idea of giving back to light its original function, which was not that of illuminating a room or a table but being heat, a source of energy.'

. Colonna (Column), 1967

Macchia III (Stain III), 1968

"Reverb" is the intriguing result of a dialogue between American artist Jorge Pardo and Italian sculptor Gilberto Zorio. Interwoven into Project (2000) - Pardo's redesign of Dia's bookshop, lobby, and gallery and partially enveloped by his new monumental curtain is Microfoni, a sound work first created by Zorio in 1969.

Gilberto Zorio Letto (Bed) 1967 Metal, lead, rubber 32 5/16 x 82 1/2 x 94 1/2 in. overall Collection IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia Courtesy IVAM, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Generalitat Valenciana, Valencia, Spain

Installazioni Mostra 1997 En Plein Air

Canoa in piramide 1991

resina, poliestere pyrex, ferro,rame, lampade,acqua, solfato di rame 205x700x355cm

Stella rosa/blu/rosa 1997

carta di incisione inchiostri, sabbiadi Stromboli, cloruro di cobalto 193x157cm

1992-2000

mattoni romani e rame 87x84cm.

Stella rosa/blu/rosa 1997

carta di incisioneinchiostri, sabbia di Stromboli, coluro di cobalto 193x157cm.

Autoritratto

Pelli di mucca con resistenza incandescente

Gilberto Zorio con Canoa-Squalo

Canoa Otto

Stella-Ink on stiff parchment

Stella-Embossed leather

Stella-Cobalt chloride, Stromboli sand and ink

Rilievi-Paint and ink

Au premier plan : Sans titre, 1995 outre en peau, moteur d'aspirateur, tube en cuivre, cornue, liquide color, timer... au mur gauche : Dessin sans titre, 1995 au mur droite : "Pelle con resistenza elettrica", 1968 peau de vache, rsistance et cble lectriques

"Stella Chagny - Per purificare le parole", 1984 terre, javelot, cuivre, spot Sans titre, 1995 outre en peau, moteur d'aspirateur, tube en cuivre, cornue, liquide color, timer... au mur : Dessin sans titre, 1986

"Stella Chagny - Per purificare le parole", 1984 terre, javelot, cuivre, spot

"Pelle con resistenza elettrica",1968 peau de vache, rsistance et cble lectriques

Acidi, 1985

Cono di Terracotta, 1988

Exhibition view

Marzio & Mariano, 1991

Stella de Terracotta, 1987

Stella di Bronzo, 1991

Venecijanski bienale, 1997.

Sans titre, 1967

Arco voltaico, 1968

Pugno fosforescente, 1971

Pugno fosforescente, 1971

Grogiuoli, 1980

Pier Paolo Calzolari

Born in Bologna in 1943, Pier Paolo Calzolari began his artistic career creating works similar to those of the American Neo-Dadaists. Since the end of the 1960s, however, Calzolari has undertaken a more complex approach involving installations and happenings, revealing his precise desire to "contaminate" art with life and all of its rhythms and paraphernalia, thereby contributing to and elaborating on the artistic dialogue put forth by Arte Povera. Utilizing natural materials like tobacco, banana leaves, wax, salt, margarine, and musk and more technological elements such as neon light, Calzolari creates artworks that originate from autobiographical notes and reflections on the role of the artist. Calzolari often transforms the materials he uses with mechanical devices such as refrigerator motors. In Chairs two common objects embodying the idea of the everyday are transfigured by a new formal intervention that reactualizes the imagery. The chairs are made of clay, a traditional artistic material that identifies them as products of the discipline of sculpture. The real world is present in the simple guise of a breadstick. This reality manifests its own processes (the breadstick dries out, deteriorates, and must be replaced) that directly recall the firing of clay, representing the observation of organic materials' transformation into rigid structures (into sculpture, the "object") and therefore from a natural element into a cultural product. This process is then compared with another, although the artist shows us only its effects. The chairs' seats and the base of the sculpture are made of lead, another natural element that has been reworked by human hands and chosen by the artist for its malleability. The pieces of lead are connected to a refrigerator motor, which causes frost to cover the lead, so much so that the pieces take on a white color. The precise formal structure of the artwork is therefore contradicted by the variety of substances used and by the partly aleatory conditions of its visibility. Suspended between different areas of meaning, it becomes an ambiguous image that seems to present us with the idea of limits ironically embodied by the cold ice. Untitled (Homage to Fontana) is another piece made with the incredibly common element of frost. In this case the transformation relates to the rectangular metal surface that constitutes the artwork. The white of the frost that is produced on this surface has value as a substitute for the pictorial color of white. Calzolari considers it to be the "essence" of white-that is, the absolute idea of "white"-and beyond specification (unlike the infinite range of white paints available on the market). All of Calzolari's work is undertaken through a kind of essential research. The artist confronts a theme with the will to render the absolute relative in order to compare or, one might say, bring it into contact with the world of phenomena. This is also the case with Untitled of 1967, in which a toy locomotive moves through the wide and almost monochromatic surface of the painting.

Pier Paolo Calzolari (b. 1943, Bologna) began with works in which objects were attached to the twodimensional canvas. This was an attempt to broaden what he saw as the merely descriptive medium of painting. The idea was further developed in his spiritual, time-based installations, which often involved people and animals. His first major 'Act of Passion' as he called these works, was The Filter and Welcome to the Angel, 1967, which suggested a transcendent vision through the dizzying contrast of colours and the presence of dazzling white doves. Around the same time, Calzolari began working with malleable metals such as lead, and organic materials like musk, tobacco and banana leaves. He also embarked on his works incorporating freezer bars. In Without Other Troubles Than My Own Other Rumblings Than Mine, 1970, for example, the words of the title are spelt out in neon across a mattress, which has been fitted with freezer bars. These generate a delicate coating of frost on their surfaces. This effect of alchemical transformation, and interest in process, is explored in other works in which Calzolari fills volumes with smoke or with water dripping from melting blocks of ice. Mattresses often appear in his works, perhaps symbolising dream-like states. All Calzolari's works have an ethereal beauty and a sense of the infinite. In Zerorose, 1970, for instance, a row of rose-coloured neon zeroes runs above a tape recorder, which endlessly plays what might equally be the words 'Zero' and 'Rose'. With this verbal and visual pun, Calzolari evokes the eternal void.

Untitled (Homage to Fontana), 1989

Chairs, 1986

Untitled,1967

Colonne (Columns), 2001Colonne, 2001

Senza titolo (mortificatio, imperfectio, putrefatio, combustio, incineratio, satisfactio, confirmatio, compositio, inventio, dispositio, actio, mneme), 1970-1971

Scalea (mi rfea pra), 1968

Senza Titolo 1994- 3 esemplari Incisione su carta su mollettone, tavolino rotante in legno, fiore 195 x 350cm. foto Luca Carr

La Luna 1980 - 3 esemplari tecnica mista sul tavolo, metallo, terracotta, caffettiera 282 x 200 x 110cm

Senza Titolo (Occhio di Dio) -1971 Foglie di tabacco, neon, trasformatore, candela, da terra: 206 x 115 x 8cm.

Senza Titolo 1970 - 2/3 2 neon, trasformatore, candele, mensole in metallo 33 x 130cm. altezza da terra 150cm.

1e 2giorno come gli orienti sono due

Canto sospeso

Senza titolo,1968

Un flauto dolce per farmi suonare

CALZOLARI, Pier Paolo "Sin ttulo" (Scalea) 1970 Acero,cobre,plomo,unidad de refrigeracin-nen az. 234 x 220 x 90 cm

Pierpaolo Calzolari, Lumini, 1970, neon, oil lamps, variable dimensions 1970

"Pier Paolo Calzoliari"

- dal 18/04/2004 al 13/06/2004 NUOVA MOSTRA presso la Casa Museo Quadreria Cesarini! Dal 18 aprile al 13 giugno 2004. Il 18 aprile alle ore 11:00 : - inaugurazione della mostra: - Orari di apertura Fossombrone

Quadreria Cesarini via Pergamino, 23 Le opere saranno esposte fino al 13 giugno 2004. L'ingresso alla mostra gratuito.

Sensa titolo, 1972, (dtail) Pier Paolo Calzolari

Senza titolo kola, perje i svijea na papiru 69,5 x 65,3 x 3 cm

Omaggio a Fontana, 1989

Installation, 1991

Giuseppe Penone

Giuseppe Penone was born in Garessio (Cuneo) in 1947. His first artworks, from circa 1968, were concerned with direct contact with the natural environment, in particular with shrubswhich, with his modifications, manifest and modify processes of growth. The artist turns to nature as the generator of precultural forms that culture adapts in order to give meaning. Trees are the elements he favors to embody this reflection: with The Trees, a cycle begun in 1969, he carves wooden beams until the image of the tree the beam used to be begins to emerge. As bodies are also part of nature and its relationship with the external world, since 1970 Penone has projected slides and then made pencil drawings of enlarged pictures of skin on the walls of the exhibition space. With other works like Potato (1977) and Zucche (Squash, 1978-79), Penone delegated the production of art to uncontrollable natural processes. In the Soffi (Gust) series, however, it is direct contact with the body that leaves imprints on the materialclay or leavesthereby generating form. Throughout the 1980s, he realized anthropomorphic works in bronze that were delineated by contact with his own body. Shrubs are placed inside in a way that allows the work to take its own time to grow. In other pieces, parts of the bodysuch as enlarged fingernails realized in glassare presented in physical proximity with leaves or stones in order to highlight their connective function between culture and nature (for the artist, a scratch from a fingernail is already a sculptural idea). Similarly, in more recent works, organic found objects such as shed snake skins are valued as proof of formal and constructive laws.

Soffio di creta H (Clay Breath H, 1978) is part of a series of works born from direct contact with the artists body and his chosen materials. In this case, clay is perhaps the most traditional of the sculptural elements used; according to the myth of Khnum, the Egyptian god represented on the vases, it is also the material from which humanity was made. Soffio refers to the figure of the potter, who models clay with his wheel and seals the vortex of air inside with his own breath in order to define the chosen form. Air is a clear equivalent for words, which symbolize creation from nothing. - MB The Trees are perhaps the best known of Penones works. Since 1969 the artist has often returned to this theme. Beginning with a log, he selects one of the growth rings still visible at its base and begins to carve into the wood in order to recuperate the trees image at a younger age. The trunk and what remain of the branches form several emerging axes: with an entirely manual approach that harks back to carpentry, the artist rejoins tool to nature. Since the 1980s, Penones Trees have stood vertically on their bases. Eleven Meter Tree (1989) is part of this series. The tree is cut and shown in two parts; the ends of the logs, at top and bottom, are left untouched to form the base of the sculptural elements. Penone has often created works inspired by the patterns in his own skin. In Propagation (1995-99), the artist traces lines from fingerprints on sheets of paper. The ink extends the prints circular and concentric pattern until it escapes the confines of the paper itself and continues onto the gallery walls. By carrying the drawing onto the wall, Penone infuses the space with energy, creating the effect of a visual vortex while simultaneously evoking types of natural growth, from tree rings and rock stratifications to the reproduction of sound through sonic waves. GV
'The clarity of the well-marked path is sterile. To find the path, to follow it, to examine it, and to clear away the tangled undergrowth: that is sculpture.' This statement, written in 1983 by Giuseppe Penone (b. 1947, Garessio, Cuneo), reflects his close relationship with nature. Perhaps because he grew up in an agricultural community, he was the only Arte Povera artist to work extensively in the natural landscape. His earliest piece was a series of interventions called Maritime Alps, 1968, made in the woods near his home. Recorded in photographs, these actions included the weaving together of three trees, or grasping a young tree trunk and marking the position of his hand with nails, so that it would always retain the traces of this action. In all his works, Penone acts less as the 'high' artist elaborately toiling with rare materials and techniques, and more as a carpenter or artisan, using simple gestures and everyday materials. His interest in revealing natural processes led to a series of tree sculptures, made from 1969 on, in which he took huge beams of roughly processed timber and chiselled away the wood, following the growth rings to expose the younger tree inside. To Turn One's Eyes Inside Out, 1970, a photograph of Penone wearing mirrored contact lenses, continues this notion of reversal. Instead of receiving images from outside for later transformation into art, the artist's eyes become screens on which to display an immediate picture of the world

Giuseppe Penone reinforces the bond between man and nature. He uses simple, archetypal forms to render visible some of the unremarked wonders of everyday existence, such as breathing, growing, and flowing. His art allows the viewer to become more aware of the beauty of the earth, the forces which sustain us, and the limitless potential of creativity. To Penone, nature is art - and man is artistic in as much as

he is natural. Penone, when he began his career thirty years ago, was associated with 'Arte Povera' ( Italian for 'poor art' ), a term coined by Germano Celant in the late 1960s to describe a group of artists, predominantly from Italy, who created sculptural work made from ordinary materials and who concerned themselves with the relationships between nature and culture, and between history and contemporary life. Penone, the youngest of the group, was probably the most concerned with the natural environment. In this exhibition, his first in Ireland, Penone has chosen to focus on a group of works related to the idea of 'breath', or 'soffio'. These pieces remind us that our every breath is an introduction of one body of air into another, and that in a certain sense our innermost being is identical to, and ultimately indistinguishable from, that of the world around us. Giuseppe Penone's vision of things, which is both earthy and poetic, runs counter to the lazy materialism of

contemporary western culture. Nature and culture, his art shows us, are inseparable.

Soffio di creta H (Clay Breath H), 1978

Albero di undici metri (11-Meter Tree), 1989 On wall : Propagazione (Propagation), 1995-99

Patate (Potatoes), 1977

Respirare l'ombra (Breathing the Shadow), 1999

Albero di 7 metri, 1980

Struttura del tempo, 1991-1992

Palpebre 1989-1991 charcoal on felt, plaster 19 parts, total c. 350 x 1500 cm 1998.GP.01

Giuseppe Penone Rovesciare gli occhi (To turn one's eyes inside out) 1970 Black and white photograph on canvas 21 1/2 x 18 1/2 x 2 in. Courtesy of the artist, Turin Photo: Paolo Mussat Sartor

Bifurcation (Set I) 1986 Biforcazione Pencil on paper support: 479 x 329 mm support: 479 x 329 mm support: 479 x 329 mm support: 479 x 329 mm on paper, unique

Giuseppe Penone Shortlisted: 1989 Penone is one of only two non-British artists to have been shortlisted for the Turner Prize; his inclusion in 1989 was part of a move to draw attention to the significant increase in the amount of work by foreign artists being shown in Britain. Penone has an international reputation; he has been associated with the Arte Povera movement in Italy since 1969; his work is also linked to Land art and Process art. Guiseppe Penone was born in Garessio Ponte, Piedmont, Italy in 1947. From 1966 to 1968 he studied at Academia di Belle Arti in Turin. In 1989 his work was commended for his exhibitions at the Arnolfini Gallery, and at the Dean Clough Arts Foundation. Helicodial tree 1988 Tree:30 x 30 x 800 cm Fondo Rivetti, Turin

Il pelo, come l'unghia e la pelle, occupa spazio: Torace

Guanto

Soffi

Paesaggio verticale

Castings of the reverse wear of steps at Dean Clough Halifax

Displayed within Dean Clough Studio

Close up showing the texture of the worn steps

Giuseppe Penone Ombres de terre, 2000-2003 Penone et Dina Carrara, 2003

Giuseppe Penone Respirare l'ombra, 1999 Red metlica y hoja de laurel

The ideas of (b. 1943, Stresa) greatly influenced the art critics of his day. He playfully uses light, photography, sound and written texts to explore the nature of experience and perception, and the relationship between reality and reproduction. In his many photographic works, the camera itself and the processes of photography are the subject of the work. In one project he took thousands of photographs with a single camera over a period of years, until it wore out. In a similar piece he made an audio-cassette player record its own internal workings until it broke down. His series of Perimeter pieces were simple acts of theatre, intended to make the spectator physically aware of the space and boundaries of the room. For the first of these, made in 1967, neon lights were placed at the corners and centre of the gallery, activated by sound. In another work of the same year, a neon tube, cut to the size of the gallery in which it was shown, was coiled around a large wooden spool. Bent Pole, 1967, curves to fit the width of the room. Prini is also interested in the infra-structure of the art world and its mechanisms. Five spots of Light on Europe, 1967-8, for example, is a map highlighting key cities in the European art world. In other map works he has marked the location of both real and imaginary projects.

Emilio Prini

Emilio Prini 1974

Piero Gilardi
Piero Gilardi (b. 1942, Turin), began to work as an artist and curator in 1963. He was closely affiliated with Arte Povera but not included as an artist in Germano Celant's definitive exhibitions. However, in 1969 he was influential in the conception of two important international exhibitions of Arte Povera. He was also a key creator of networks between artists, travelling extensively throughout Europe and America, and bringing back news of contemporary developments. He wrote about these in a series of articles in Flash Art, Milan from 1967-8, and as a critic and writer played an important role in the emergence of new forms of art during this period. In 1965 he began making his Nature Carpets, polyurethane carpets that simulated natural phenomena such as riverbeds, leaves and fruit and could be bought off a roll by the metre. His aim was to use technology to restore contact between urban man and nature. In favour of artistic autonomy, Gilardi began to criticise the enormous influence of private galleries on the selection process for exhibitions. As a consequence of his political beliefs and of his critique of the increasing commodification of art, he stopped producing art during the 1970s. He took part in other activities such as working creatively with psychiatric patients, only returning to his own art practice with the creation of inter-active, computer-based environments during the 1980s and 1990s.

Piero GILARDI - A park grows from a flower, 2000 The spirit of the living art park is illustrated in this work, is the fruit of pollination of nature and art.

Amazzonia, 1991. litografija u boji

Bez naziva,1994. litografija u boji

Normandia, 1991. litografija u boji