Arte Povera: Selections from the Sonnabend Collection

Arte Povera: Selections from the Sonnabend Collection presents work that has rarely been exhibited in New York before. It includes work by each of the Arte Povera artists in the Sonnabend collection. Curator Claire Gilman reexamines the Italian movement that Ileana Sonnabend was instrumental in bringing to the world's attention.

The exhibition seeks to explore the group's unique contribution to postwar art, while re-evaluating Celant's early categorization of the artists' works. It emphasizes conceptual themes rather than material similarities, presenting a more inclusive approach. At the same time, it provides a rare opportunity to introduce U.S. audiences to key works, many of which have never been shown outside of Europe.

The works span a diversity of media ranging from Anselmo's Direzione (Direction), 1967-69—a found granite slab with a compass needle inserted—to Pistoletto's Uomo seduto (Seated Man), 1962-63—a peculiar combination of photography, painting and collage in which a life-sized image of the artist, traced from a photograph onto thin, translucent paper, is glued on an otherwise empty mirrored panel.

The "Arte Povera" was a group of twelve artists: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Guiseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio. They produced one of the most authentic and independent European artistic interventions of the late 1960s. Pitted in certain ways against the hegemony of American art, specifically that of minimalist sculpture, it was also an artistic movement that recuperated the contradictory legacy of Italian avant garde culture from the beginning of the century as defined in the dialectics of Futurism and Giorgio De Chirico's Pittura Metafisica

The exhibition is drawn from the rich holdings of the gallerist Ileana Sonnabend. Sonnabend has long been recognized as one of the foremost collectors and promoters of American art from the 1950s, '60s, and '70s. Lesser-known is her devotion to an entirely different artistic phenomenon the Italian neo-avant-garde—which is equally impressive. Striking in its comprehensiveness, the collection was assembled by Sonnabend and her husband, Michael.