Jannis Kounellis’ works–painting and collages, as well as the the staging of installations, “environments,” performances, and theatrical shows–express the tensions and alienation of contemporary society, and the multiplicity, obscurity, and fragmentation of its language. Aiming to transcend the poetics of Art Informel, Kounellis has pursued a line of study characterised by contradictory concerns with, on the one hand, the symbols of mass urban and industrial civilisation, and on the other, primitive, fundamental, individual values. From 1967 he became associated with Arte Povera, and his work was characterised by the juxtaposition of objects, materials, and actions that were both physically and culturally antithetical to one another. These included raw materials such as stone, cotton, wool, and coal, and objets trouvés such as bed-frames, doors, and, since 1969, shelves. He also used fire, soot, and smoke in his installations. In 1969, for what is now his best-known work, Kounellis brought live horses into the Galleria L'Attico in Rome, stressing the fragmentation of modern society by also introducing elements of traditional culture. His experimentation with unorthodox combinations of materials have continued into the twenty-first century.

In 1967, Kounellis was included in “Arte povera e IM spazio,” an important group exhibition at the Galleria La Bertesca in Genoa where curator Germano Celant coined the term Arte Povera. Kounellis’ first New York solo show was in 1972 at Sonnabend Gallery. Since then, solo exhibitions and retrospectives of his work have been presented by institutions such as Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Caja de Pensiones in Madrid, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Bordeaux’s Musée d’Art Contemporain, Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Galeria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, Montreal’s Musée d’Art Contemporain, and Espai Pobenou in Barcelona.

Courtesy of Tate