In the above video, the veteran Arte Povera artist, Michelangelo Pistoletto, rolls a globe made from contemporary newspapers, from the Tate Modern out into the streets of London, and back again. In this 2009 piece he recreated a work first performed in Turin in 1966. His performance is characteristic of the largely Italian Arte Povera movement in a number of way - a simple act with manifold interpretations - a paradoxical relationship between nature and culture, complex reflections on time and on culture, a desire for art to leave the gallery and for the world to enter the gallery.
Kounellis, J. (1969) Untitled / 12 Live Horses, Rome, Installation. Image: http://artcritical.com/2010/11/21/kounellis/
Similarly, Jannis Kounellis brought nature into the gallery in his 1969 piece comprising twelve horses - nature is not 're-presented' here, but presented directly, and framed by culture (the gallery itself). We see beauty here of course, but it is the natural beauty of the horses, and the gallery is left to deal with the horses natural waste. What is a gallery? What is art?
Futurism, half a century earlier in Italy, had also questioned the role of art and its relationship to the gallery. But Arte Povera is, in some ways, a far cry from the utopian Futurist vision of society. Futurism's wild acclamation of science and technology in the early 20th century, and its negation of history, is replaced by a more reflective, subtle, complex and inclusive attitude - in the light of growing Italian consumerism, the legacy of two cataclysmic world wars, and emerging environmental concerns.
Arte Povera, means 'poor art' (a reference to poor materials) but also an art of the poor, in the tradition, deeply embedded in Italy, of the Franciscans - an idea of the dignity of poverty.
Bibliography
Lista G. (2006). Arte povera. Milan: 5 Continents Editions
Pistoletto M. (2003). Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933) ‘Famous Last Words’. In: Harrison A, Wood P (Eds.) Art in theory 1900-2000: an anthology of changing ideas. Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing, Pp 873-877
Tate. (2009). TateShots: Michelangelo Pistoletto at Tate Modern. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR18ijofPbU (Accessed March 7, 2011)
Tisdall, Caroline. (1989).’Materia’: the context of Arte Povera. In: Braun, Emily (Ed.), Italian art in the 20th Century: painting and sculpture 1900-1988. Munich: Prestel. Pp. 363-8
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