Arte Povera at Bourse de Commerce

Disparate offering

As its name suggests, the Pinault Collection in Paris was designed to showcase the works of art amassed by the businessman François Pinault within the Bourse de Commerce. Up until now the site has presented exhibitions which did indeed enable numerous discoveries, while nonetheless presenting a disparate offering, aligning with the interests of the collector.

Monumental rotunda

The high point of the place is the monumental rotunda, always leading with a masterful aesthetic gesture. The current exhibition is no exception but for the first time, more generally, it is offering a vast display, institutional and coherent, dedicated to a key movement in art history, Arte Povera.

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev

This show, orchestrated by the curator, former director of the Castello di Rivoli in Turin and artistic director of Documenta in 2012, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, occupies all four floors of the Bourse de Commerce (See here an other interview of Carolyn). “Arte Povera” is a didactic exhibition conceived by zooming in on certain names.

Jannis Kounellis

The subject is dealt with in a very intellectual fashion and it could have taken a more aesthetic approach. Mario Merz (1925-2003) with his giant igloos and Jannis Kounellis (1936-2017) with his raw materials, for example, present an unmistakable visual power in their work. (See here an interview of Jannis Kounellis speaking about harmony in 2016).

Germano Celant

The movement was born in 1967 following the initiative of visionary art critic Germano Celant (1940-2020) (See above a video of Germano Celant speaking about Jannis Kounellis in 2019). It brings together visual artists with very varied approaches but who all live in Italy and were seeking to explode traditional art to produce radical experiences.

Pier Paolo Calzolari

This is confirmed by one of its eminent members Pier Paolo Calzolari (born in 1943) who now lives in Lisbon: “There is no real commonality between my work and that of Michelangelo Pistoletto for example,” he explains. “My vision is that of the world as a great temple. A whirlwind of thoughts circulates through the air. It’s this whirlwind that the artist must aim for.”

Poor?

Gino Paolini

Some of the members of this circle, brought together for a time by Celant, use common or “poor” materials in their creation (glass and branches for Mario Merz, for example, and a mirror with the inlay of an image for Michelangelo Pistoletto) (See here an interview of Michelangelo Pistoletto). Embroideries in the case of Alighiero Boetti (1940 -1994).

The hand of the craftsman

Mario Merz

But the curator emphasizes that we shouldn’t limit ourselves to this idea. “Look at Luciano Fabro’s marble reclining figure from 1967 (editor’s note: it’s placed in the rotunda). It doesn’t address dematerialization at all. It values ​​the hand of the craftsman, who creates all these folds in the marble sheet like a trompe-l’oeil to represent an unknown figure. Arte Povera challenges the nature of art. They literally invented the principle of the installation.”

Fluid monochrome spaces

Pino Pascali

Indeed, one of the most beautiful installations is by Pino Pascali (1935-1968), a native of Puglia whose life was all too short and whose remarkable small foundation can be visited in his native region (https://www.fondazionepascali. it/?lang=en). He conceived large rectangular tanks of blue-dyed water, fluid monochrome spaces.

Giuseppe Penone

Giuseppe Penone

Not far away, Giuseppe Penone (born in 1947) works with trees and their shapes to make poetic sculptures. When visiting the exhibition, the latter was ecstatic: “it has works that I only knew from photos. I joined the movement in 1968 and exhibitions had already been held before. Pieces by Anselmo, Boetti… It’s an exhibition that is of interest even to those who were part of this story.” (See here an other interview of Giuseppe Penone).

Adrian Villar Rojas

Finally, as Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev’s mind also likes to play hooky, she has also summoned works from the past which she links through their spirit to Arte Povera, or other current ones which, according to her, are their heirs in one capacity or another. Among them there’s a group of pieces made by one of the very prominent artists from the younger generation: Adrian Villar Rojas.

Adrian Villar Rojas

He says while he was studying art history in Argentina “in the pre-internet period we learned about Arte Povera through black and white photocopies of the works. These poor quality images had the power to excite our imagination.”

A sort of Arte Povera of Arte Povera…

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Until 20 January. www.pinaultcollection.com/fr