Arte Povera: Two Sides of the Same Artistic Canvas

Is it fair to say that Pop Art is one of the most recognisable art movements of the 20th century? Not everyone is an expert, of course, but Pop Art’s celebration of everyday objects provided a more inviting path into the art world than other movements like Cubism or Pointillism. Pop Art posed beautifully as the poster child for unprecedented expression in the 1960s, but there was a flip side to that coin. Find out more in Arte Povera: Two Sides of the Same Artistic Canvas Here

Image on left-hand side: Giuseppe Penone, Respirare l’ombra (To Breathe the Shadow), 1999. Wire mesh, laurel leaves, bronze. Total dimension determined by the space. Installation view Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. Photo © Archivio Penone.

By the 20th century, the classic Roman and French art galleries, with their vast and rich oil paintings, were being tested. The camera was born, and the purpose of traditional art was questioned, hence one reason modern art grew so rapidly in this new century. 

With Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as some of its main protagonists, the Pop Art movement primarily celebrated American pop culture in the 1960s through works challenging traditional fine art methods and content.

Pop Art celebrated consumerism, fame, glamour, and wealth, particularly in America. Artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein presented vivid, bright, and simple images on canvas with styles that often took the lead from advertising slogans and comic styling. They brought a bit of everyday life into an otherwise seemingly exclusive universe; ordinary objects such as a comic book or a can of soup made their way into the highest echelons of the art world.

However, Pop Art was only one of several art movements that expressed controversial ideas at that point in history. Modern art in the 20th century was, after all, challenging what art’s purpose was. This grand establishment was questioning itself in a number of new and exciting ways.

As Warhol and his friends became world famous and, of course, rich, a handful of artists in Italy had a very different approach. Many artists who produced ‘poor’ art frequently used waste and natural materials; they were not nearly as concerned with achieving an aesthetic result as their American counterparts. Think of the electrifying graphics portrayed in many of the works created under the Pop Art movement, then think of the virtual opposite; meet Arte Povera.

It seems that regarding an artistic movement as ‘poor’ is contradictory, yet Arte Povera, which literally translates to ‘poor art,’ was less about the monetary value of a piece and more about challenging the ideals of the culture’s fixation on money and appetite for consumerism, and how art was affected by it.

It was Italian art curator and critic Germano Celant who coined the title in 1967 in his manifesto, Arte Povera: Appunti per una guerriglia, which translates to ‘notes for a guerilla war.’

Artist Alighiero Boetti designed a poster for the manifesto, which listed 16 Italian artists who influenced the Arte Povera movement. Some of the leading artists included were Giovanni Anselmo, Luciano Fabro, Piero Gilardi, Michelangelo Pistoletto, and Alighiero Boetti himself.

Following Celant and Boetti’s publication, a revolutionary wave of works reshaped what people perceived as art. It challenged the excessive consumerism that diluted the integrity of many artists’ pieces. 

Pop Art romanticized the exciting allure of American pop culture. Alternatively, in Italy, this was viewed as another exported product from an industrialised nation. Arte Povera emphasized the process and concept behind the artwork rather than the finished product.

Both movements flipped traditional art on its head. They extended a hand out to anyone and everyone willing to participate in a new era of expression, regardless of their artistic background, if they had any at all.

The artists who shaped these movements brilliantly executed their goals of challenging traditional fine art methods but did so from entirely different angles. If art in the ’60s was a coin, Pop Art was heads and Arte Povera tails.

Giuseppe Penone, Gesti vegetali (Vegetal Gestures), 1983-1985. Bronze, vegetation. Installation view Galleria Borghese, Rome, 2023. Photo © Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Artists like Penone and Boetti intended to transform impermanent and inexpensive items into meaningful artwork. Their use of traditional and non-traditional materials, including waste, soil, rags, twigs, and rocks, was another part of their resistance toward long-established works of art.

This April, London’s Serpentine South will host a solo exhibition by Italian artist Giuseppe Penone featuring pieces ranging from works on paper to sculptures from 1977 to today. Suitable to the concept of Arte Povera, many of his works are inspired by nature.

For one of his pieces, titled Cedro di Versailles (Cedar of Versailles), also known as The Hidden Life Within, Penone took a tree that had fallen from a storm in the park of Versailles and carved another tree inside of it. Penone aimed to initiate new life within the old, returning the tree to its earlier stage.

Giuseppe Penone, Cedro di Versailles (Cedar of Versailles), 2000-2003 or The Hidden Life Within created by carving away portions of the tree and revealing the earlier stages of the tree’s life. On exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario 2011. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Penone revealed the tree’s past, showing a new life form inside of an older one, and by doing so, displayed a similarity between all living things and how time shapes them. The depth of his message within a single sculpture, made with virtually nothing but a dead tree and the tools used to shape it, feels intuitive upon looking at the work.

The powerful message behind Cedro di Versailles feels profound yet easy to digest. Penone invited everyone to participate in his art; it was not a grand oil painting of a royal constituent that many may find difficult to relate to, but a sculpture produced from a token part of nature. This is reminiscent of what Warhol did with Campbell’s Soup Cans in terms of aggrandising commonality into art but in a more literal, down-to-earth style.

A occhi chiusi (With Eyes Closed), 2009, acrylic paint, glass microspheres, acacia thorns on canvas; white Carrara marble, total dimensions 150 × 510 × 8 cm. Instal-lation view BNF Paris 2021, Photo © Archivio Penone

Penone has played a massive role in the Arte Povera movement, and his exhibit at the Serpentine poses a timely reminder of what one may consider to be the purpose of art. In a world obsessed with money, being creative just for the sake of it can be a protest.

If you enjoyed reading Arte Povera: Two Sides of the Same Artistic Canvas then why not try Grewal’s Window to the World.

.Cent Magazine London, Be Inspired; Get Involved