ARTE POVERA 1967-1971
Johannesburg, Wits Art Museum
October 31 – December 9, 2023
Exhibition views: © Simone Zanetti. Courtesy Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg
Promoted by the Consulate General of Italy in Johannesburg
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The exhibition intends to celebrate 56 years since the first Arte Povera exhibition, titled Arte povera Im-spazio and curated by Germano Celant, on September 27, 1967 in Genoa, at Galleria La Bertesca. On that occasion, Celant writes in the catalog that he coined the definition of Arte Povera to indicate the linguistic process of some Italian artists that “consists in removing, eliminating, reducing to minimum terms, impoverishing signs, in order to reduce them to their archetypes.”
Arte Povera 1967-1971 is the first Arte Povera exhibition on the African Continent and the first Arte Povera exhibition after its theorist, Germano Celant, passed away in 2020; hence, it is of crucial historical meaning.
Working closely with the artists, or their archives, as well as with important collectors and museums that were available to lend their works, the exhibition includes historical works by the 13 artists who, following insertions and removals after 1967, are now viewed as being the recognized exponents of Arte Povera.
Rather than proposing a general retrospective on the research of the 13 artists, the exhibition adopted a more analytical and philological concept, restoring the liveliness and the dialogue existing among those artists from the second half of the 1960s to the very early 1970s. In fact, the Wits Art Museum will showcase some of the emblematic works in the artists’ research, dated between 1967 – the year the term Arte Povera was coined by Celant – and 1971 – the year he announced that the Arte Povera label should disappear in order to let each artist assume his or her singularity. By setting this specific time limit, the exhibition delves into the first phase of Arte Povera, at the same time aiming to grasp the common denominators that led Celant to create that specific definition for his research. Hence, the addition of a few works made immediately before year 1967.
Most of the works in the exhibition were presented in historic Arte Povera group shows and in solo exhibitions of the respective artists, between 1967 and 1971. An area with an illustrated chronology of the group exhibitions held between 1967 and 1971, which are to be considered pivotal to the history of Arte Povera, accompanied by display cases with relative catalogs, is also part of the exhibition. The exhibition ends with the videodocumentary Arte Povera, edited by Beatrice Merz and Sergio Ariotti (Hopefulmonster, Turin, 2011).
Exhibited artists: 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, Gilberto Zorio.