Book dossier

Arte povera in collezione

by Ida Gianelli, Tommaso Trini, Giovanni Anselmo

Arte Povera, which developed during the second half of the ‘Sixties simultaneous to analogous international movements such as Process Art and Conceptual Art, proposed an artistic working methodology that, establishing a relationship among various languages and emphasizing an “asystematic way of living,” radically affirmed the need to relate to primary elements and non-traditional materials that might directly express natural energy and ideas. “Arte Povera in the Collection” inaugurates the “Project for Modern and Contemporary Art” promoted by the CRT Foundation as part of its institutional activities to advance and protect art, in order to enhance the modern and contemporary art system in Piedmont and to support synergies and the international role of the museum hub in Turin, through the acquisition of groups of historical works for the collections of Castello di Rivoli and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino. On the occasion of this exhibition, the acquisition of Arte Povera works dating from 1967 to 1971, from the collection of Margherita Stein, has made it possible to present a complete view of the genesis of these poetics and, by placing this group of works alongside works already belonging to the permanent collections of the two museums, to document more recent outcomes through the individual paths of the movement’s leading figures.