Poor art

Co-edition Dilecta and Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection Amid the In the 1960s, Italian artists began to exhibit together, under the standard of the expression "arte povera" - poor art -, an expression coined in 1967 by Germano Celant, art critic and exhibition curator, who adapts the concept of “poor theatre”, put forward by the director of experimental theater Jerzy Grotowski. Artists associated with this movement — Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario and Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio – are interested mainly at the intersection of art and life, nature and culture. They suggest that the essence of a work of art lies in the experience subjective that we make of a material, its transformations and space. They focus their attention on the "primal" energy that runs through all the facets of life – an energy experienced directly, which escapes all representation, ideology or language. This energy corresponds to the forces fundamental physics of nature (gravity and magnetic fields) and also refers to the primordial elements of human nature (the vitality, memory, emotions). These artists, originally from Turin, Genoa, Bologna, Milan and Rome create in a very unique, free way, not conventional and non-dogmatic, both in the field of painting and sculpture, drawing and photography; they are the ones who produce the first installations, performances and actions in the history of art – moving from one medium to another without worrying about "style", using humble materials (natural and artificial) in order to generate a real experience of the here and now. Arte Povera artists are interested in our perception, combining their fascination with everyday life with a deep respect for artistic tradition. Wary of intellectualization excessive of the artistic field, they borrow from the baroque aesthetic its heterogeneity and its apparent incoherence. At the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, the exhibition, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, expert internationally recognized on the subject, traces the history of this movement, from its beginnings in Italy to its development throughout the world, in based on a selection of works by the thirteen main artists of the arte povera from the Pinault Collection, that of the Castello di Rivoli and the Fondazione per l'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT, or other prestigious collections, including those of the artists themselves. Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is a writer, art historian and exhibition curator Italian-American. She notably directed the Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and the Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin between 2016 and 2023. Named the most powerful person in the art world in 2012 by the ArtReview's Power 100 ranking, Christov-Bakargiev was the director artistic director of dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), an event for which she also also organized workshops, seminars and exhibitions in Alexandria (Egypt), Kabul (Afghanistan) and Banff (Canada). Gabriele Guercio is a independent researcher based in Milan. He writes on modern and contemporary art, as well as on the history of art theory. Marcella Beccaria is art historian, curator and author. She is currently Chief Curator and Curator of Collections at Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art. Riccardo Passoni is an art historian, critic and exhibition curator. Fabio Cafagna is an art historian