Major Italian Art Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila ‘ARTE POVERA: An Italian Landscape’

The Embassy of Italy Manila, Security Bank Corporation and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila proudly present, for the first time in Southeast Asia, a major contemporary Italian art exhibition: ARTE POVERA: An Italian Landscape from February 10 to April 30, 2020 at the Tall Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.

Arte Povera: Italian Landscape captures one of the most pivotal points in the history of Italian contemporary art in the 60s through the 70s. The Arte Povera movement broke boundaries in traditional art making through new engagement with audiences and an experimental approach in making life and everyday objects integral to art. The exhibit will feature the masterpieces of twelve Italian artists who gave birth to the Arte Povera movement. Participating in this exhibition are contemporary Italian master artists Jannis Kounellis, Marisa Merz, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio Pier, Paolo Calzolari, Francesco Arena, and Gianni Caravaggio.

With an enduring influence from their times to present day art practice, Arte Povera responded to the sociopolitical milieu in Italy during that time — industrialization, mechanization, and instability of the economy. As a reaction to the perceived dominating abstract modernism in painting, Arte Povera artists focused on sculptural works and installation by using assemblages of cheap throwaway materials evoking a distinct Italian aesthetic. Arte Povera emphasizes the physicality of our daily lives.

Arte Povera: An Italian Landscape is curated by Danilo Eccher, a well known Italian art critic and curator who served as director of several cultural institutions in Italy since 1989, including the Galleria Civicad’Arte Contemporanea di Trento, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna in Bologna, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, and the Galleria Civicad’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin. Eccher eventually turned to an independent curatorial practice in 2015, working on solo exhibitions of artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Albert Oehlen, Sean Scully, and Christian Boltansk.