Mazzoleni presents Old bond room: exploring Arte Povera, an exhibition showcasing works from the Mazzoleni Collection. The exhibition features works by some of Arte Povera’s most celebrated artists, including Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jannis Kounellis, Alighiero Boetti, Giulio Paolini and Gilberto Zorio.

The Arte Povera movement emerged as a transformative force in the post-war art scene, challenging traditional norms and embracing experimentation. Coined in 1967 by Italian art critic and curator Germano Celant, the term Arte Povera, meaning “poor art,” reflects the movement’s unconventional use of everyday materials.

By turning ordinary objects into profound artistic statements, Arte Povera redefined the boundaries of painting and sculpture, offering a radical new perspective on the nature of art itself.

This exhibition showcases the raw simplicity and conceptual depth of the movement, inviting viewers to explore its enduring relevance today.

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s (b.1933) Cabina telefonica (2007) is part of his renowned Quadri specchianti (Mirror Paintings) series. By transferring a photographic image onto reflective stainless steel, he merges art with its surroundings, integrating the viewer into the work itself.

For Pistoletto, time is not merely depicted but actively present—the artwork constantly shifts as its environment changes. This interplay between image and reflection transforms the piece into a portal, blurring the boundaries between art and life.

A key figure in Arte Povera, Jannis Kounellis (1936–2017) began with paintings that evolved into compositions of letters, signs, and numbers on unconventional materials like wood and newsprint. Over time, he introduced industrial elements—iron, cotton, coal, wood, fire, and jute—often associated with labour and industry. By juxtaposing these materials, he explored stark contrasts: soft and hard, tar and steel, industrial and agrarian.

Kounellis’s work frequently reflects the human condition, with metal sheet supports often mirroring the scale of familiar objects like a bed, window, or door. His sculptures incorporate everyday materials and symbols of labour—clothing, tools, and domestic objects—grounding his work in social and historical realities, as seen in Untitled (2022). Beyond these material tensions, his work carries a deep awareness of history, tracing the processes that have shaped the past.

Giulio Paolini’s (b.1940) practice centres on the nature of art itself—exploring the relationship between artist, viewer, and artwork. Rooted in classical tradition and metaphysical inquiry, his work remains detached from contemporary reality, instead reflecting on art’s timeless and conceptual essence.

In Untitled (1985), a stylized figure—often a surrogate self-portrait—performs a conjuring trick, rolling the negative silhouette of its own head along an outstretched arm. Red diagonal lines extend the figure’s perspective while framing a patch of sky, evoking the tension between illusion and reality.

This work connects to Paolini’s early Disegno geometrico (Geometric drawing), which serves as a conceptual blueprint for his entire practice—an ongoing attempt to capture an elusive vision through acts of artistic sleight-of-hand.

Gilberto Zorio (b.1944) explores the forces that make each work inherently mutable. By triggering chemical and physical reactions, he integrates his works into a continuous life cycle, observing their transformation. His alchemical creations capture energy exchanges, mechanical shifts, and themes of evolution and human existence, with time playing a crucial role in revealing these changes.

Zorio’s distinctive visual language includes five-sided stars and javelin forms—symbols of energy, movement, and transformation. His sculptures, often featuring fragile materials suspended in precarious balance, evoke tension and impermanence. Through process and alchemy, he examines natural transformations like evaporation and oxidation, as seen in Stella (1976).

Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) was an Italian artist renowned for his innovative and conceptual approach to art. A key member of the Arte Povera group, he often explored the interplay between order and chaos, as well as the tension between individual creativity and pre-defined systems.

Aeroplani (Airplanes) is a series of drawings, embroideries, and other artworks created during the 1960s and 1970s. Distinguished by their simplicity and repetitive nature, they depict aircraft and reflect Boetti’s interest in themes of travel, exploration, and globalization. He articulates the idea of movement, both literally and metaphorically. Boetti’s works often engage deeply with the concepts of time and space, and Aeroplani can be interpreted as a representation of the interconnectedness of the world and the rapid transformations of the mid-20th century.

Boetti employed a variety of materials and techniques to create these images, including ballpoint pen drawings and coloured pencils. The airplanes in his works often appear in a grid-like pattern, evoking the image of a fleet of aircraft in formation. The grid format further suggests themes of mass production and mechanical replication.