Arte Povera

Mario Merz is perhaps best known for his igloos, which he made in a variety of materials beginning in 1968. What is perhaps less well known, however, are the artist’s small models of his igloos, one of which is on display in Magazzino’s lobby.

This work is a model for an igloo that the artist never realized. The sculptural and architectural maquette reminds us of Merz’s interest in the igloo as an archetypal habitat and creative source throughout his career. Merz associated the sustainable, temporary architectural form, made from natural materials, with nomadic living.

Frequently using natural materials in his own igloos, such as stone and wax (associated with energy), Merz often juxtaposed organic materials with manmade or industrial materials, even those derived from natural sources, such as steel and glass.

The transparency of the structure invites viewers to contemplate the idea of an enclosed habitat that is nevertheless open to the world. This work is one of six small igloos from 1984 that the artist made in Japan for his 1988 solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Nagoya. This is the first time the work has been shown in the United States.

In 2007, not long before the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy as a nation state (1861), Michelangelo Pistoletto created Stracci italiani, a reinterpretation of the tricolor Italian flag made of discarded fabric.

Pistoletto’s rag works date back to the very first years of Arte Povera. His most famous piece from that period is Venere degli stracci (Venus of the Rags, 1967): a work in which a copy of a classical Greek statue (itself known only by Roman copies), Aphrodite of Knidos (4th century BCE) by Praxiteles, is positioned such that the figure faces a heap of discarded rags.

While Pistoletto originally repurposed rags he used to polish his stainless steel mirror paintings, over the course of his career his use of rags has taken on larger ideological significance as a critique of capitalist society, becoming emblematic of throw-away culture.

Swiss artist Peter Wüthrich has incorporated books into his artworks since the early 1990s. Literary food (Il banchetto dell’arte) was created in May 2007 to mark the inauguration of Galleria Christian Stein’s exhibition spaces on Via Gallarate in Milan and in Pero, Italy.

The installation consists of cans of different sizes covered with pages from exhibition catalogs of the various artists who have shown their work at Galleria Christian Stein.

At the inaugural dinner, each table was dedicated to a different artist. At the center of each table was a small pyramid of cans. At the end of the dinner, these cans were collected and displayed as “literary food.” The work is an homage to the Galleria Christian Stein as well as to some of the central figures of contemporary Italian art.

An accent mark is all it takes to change everything: form, meaning, and direction. There is never just one possibility. Liliana Moro has dedicated a large part of her work to the investigation of polysemy or the ability of words to have multiple meanings.

Such is the case in this work, àncóra. Meaning both “anchor” and “again,” depending on pronunciation, the word as it is annotated here evokes both meanings at once.

When the first syllable is stressed, it is a noun that describes an anchor, an object that stabilizes; in the second, when the second syllable is stressed, it is an adverb meaning “still,” “even now,” and “again,” denoting a repetition or return as well as temporal duration. The work is an example of the connection between linguistic experimentation in Arte Povera and contemporary art.

Penone’s work often examines the relationship between nature and the human body. The scale of Unghia e marmo renders the body as monument.

The glass form is an outsized version of the artist’s fingernail. According to Penone, “I began with the idea of the fingernail as a tool for making sculpture, as a utensil of the body.” The artist extensively focuses on the fingernail as a primary connector between the body and the external world. Touch is the first sense through which we learn about the world around us.

The use of Carrara marble is historically linked to monumental sculpture. Indeed, the giant fingernail and cracked marble plinth recall the fragments of the Colossus of Constantine (312–15 CE), an ancient monumental statue of the Roman emperor now on display in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

The use of monumental scale and materials emphasizes the importance of the body, while Penone highlights its fragility by rendering the nail in glass. The juxtaposition between durable and fragile materials represents touch and our contact with the world.

Paolini often references art history as a source of inspiration. In this work, Giulio Paolini excerpts details from specific works throughout western European art history that include depictions of the sky.

Il cielo e dintorni consists of eighteen white flags onto which Paolini printed representations of the sky, selected from works by artists Albrecht Altdorfer, Giacomo Balla, Bronzino, Perugino, Pablo Picasso, Piero della Francesca, Raphael, Rousseau le Douanier, Sassetta, J.M.W. Turner and Domenico Veneziano.

By printing these images of the sky onto lightweight flags that wave in the wind, Paolini compares the reality of an endless sky with detail images of it framed on the flags. The juxtaposition of the representations of the sky on the flags with the real sky above sets up a comparison of reality with artistic interpretations of it.

Domenico Bianchi’s interest in space and structure informs his reconsideration of painting in the context of architectural three-dimensional space. He has worked in various architectural and environmental settings. Cardosa stone and the precious ultramarine mineral, lapis lazuli.

Cardosa stone is a sandstone that is quarried in the area of the Alta Versilia in the Italian Alps. Stone from this area has been used by some of the world’s most famous sculptors, including Michelangelo. The inlaid blue lapis lazuli comes from the mines of Sar-i Sang in northeastern Afghanistan.

The juxtaposition established between the different colors and materials creates a dialogue between sculpture, painting, and the decorative arts. The form of the bench suggests a place of contemplation and a unification of distant histories and geographies.

According to Remo Salvadori, Nel momento/Magazzino is a work about transformation. Its varied designs capture the gaze of the viewer who stands before the work. The designs open up a new path to be followed with the mind, the heart, and body.

Lead is a heavy metal. It is dark and lusterless, and it is unable to be penetrated by light. Associated with alchemy, the transformational properties of lead are evoked by Salvadori’s manipulation of the material in this work. Through the contemplative process of cutting and folding that discards nothing, Salvadori reveals the material’s potential: He makes it flower, offering it up to the light.

The rotation of the cuts and folds transforms the sheet of lead. The interplay of solids and voids created by this action creates a rhythm that fills up “the moment”: As the artist states, “the work is a metaphor for the transformation that occurs when we direct our gaze
upon ourselves.”