Arte Povera is the subject of an amazing exhibition at the Pinault Collection, Bourse de Commerce and it is on view until 20th January 2025. Although Arte Povera is typically classified as an artistic movement that began in the late 1960s, it has and continues to have a significant impact on visual artists today.

In addition to works that have been inspired by this significant Italian artistic movement of the 1960s, the exhibition in Paris features over 250 historic and contemporary works by artists including Giuseppe Penone, Janis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario and Marisa Merz among many other luminaries.

Conceived by curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, an expert in the field, the show includes about fifty iconic and historic pieces from the Pinault Collection that have been positioned in dialogue with Arte Povera works from around the world.

“In the mid-1960s, a certain number of Italian artists, mainly from Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Milan, and Rome, gave rise to a body of work that is original, free-spirited, utterly unconventional, and non-dogmatic, one that expanded the domains of painting, sculpture, drawing, and photography, and which created the first ‘installations’ in art history, as well as performance works and actions.

By using simple materials and techniques, these artists have created installations involving the viewer in the work itself. By privileging elements that are ‘natural’ and ‘rural’ (such as soil, potatoes, lettuce, water, coal, trees, and the living bodies of animals and humans), as well as ‘artificial’ and ‘urban’ (elements found in hardware stores such as stainless steel plates, lead ingots, light bulbs, wood beams, and neon tubes), their works trigger flows of physical, chemical, and even psychic energy, drawing on notions of memory and emotion to engage their viewers”, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev writes.

From the 1980s with David Hammons, William Kentridge, Jimmie Durham, and Anna Boghiguian to the 1990s with Pierre Huyghe, Grazia Toderi, and Adrián Villar Rojas to the 2000s with Mario Garcia Torres, Renato Leotta, Agnieszka Kurant, Otobong Nkanga, Theaster Gates, and D Harding, thirteen artists whose work resonates with Arte Povera dialogue with and continue the movement.

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Images: ‘Arte Povera ‘, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, agence Pierre-Antoine Gatier. Photo : Florent Michel / 11h45 / Pinault Collection.