An ambitious exhibition that retraces the history of the movement with 250 artworks
There are artistic movements that mark a fundamental stage in the history of art, and this is the case of arte povera (poor art).
La Bourse de Commerce - Pinault Collection dedicates to it, until January 20th, 2025, an ambitious exhibition and traces its birth in Italy, its development, and the international heritage. The curator Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, former director of the Castello di Rivoli, has collected 250 works from its thirteen main protagonists: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, and Gilberto Zorio, to which are added new commissions, entrusted both to artists of the historical group and to international artists of the following generations, whose creation dialogues with the movement.
The arte povera aim is to counter the dehumanizing forces of consumerism and take possession of reality
Arte povera was first exhibited by Germano Celant in 1967. In the context of post-war Italy’s economic boom and the predominance of the American art scene, the movement’s aim was to invent a new relationship with the world, against the dehumanizing forces of consumerism, by retaking possession of reality. The artists introduce natural and rural materials (land, water, coal, trees, living bodies) alongside artificial and urban materials (steel plates, wooden beams, neon tubes). Art is understood as a form of empirical practice rather than an abstract philosophy, to embody the subjective understanding of the world through existential experience. Celebrating the entire space in which art is deployed in a holistic way, these artists have contributed to the development of the installation: viewers become part of the work of art through their presence.
This exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce is a challenge, an exchange between artists, place and public
The exhibition path brings together some fifty emblematic artworks from the Pinault Collection with those from other prestigious collections, and it was designed for the museum’s rooms. Exhibiting arte povera is a challenge, a continuous exchange between the artists, the place, and the public. The Rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce is a space at once central and intermediate, between the outside and the inside, and it welcomes the collective dynamics of the artists.
Now, art is understood as a form of empirical practice rather than an abstract philosophy
Thus, in all the interstices of the Bourse de Commerce, twelve contemporary artists whose practice constitutes a form of resonance to arte povera continue their story: from David Hammons, William Kentridge, Jimmie Durham, and Anna Boghiguian in the 80s, to Theaster Gates, Pierre Huyghe, Grazia Toderi, and Adrián Villar Rojas in the 1990s, up to Garcia Torres, Renato Leotta, Agnieszka Kurant, Otobong Nkanga, and D Harding.
