From 9 October to 20 January, the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection in Paris is hosting a major survey of arte povera, a term coined by critic Germano Celant to describe a group of Italian artists working in the late 1960s, predominantly in Turin, Milan, Genoa and Rome. Often translated as ‘poor art’, the spirit of arte povera has tended to be surmised via its proponents’ predilection for creating works from inexpensive raw materials – both natural (soil, jute, wood, wool) and industrial (aluminium, copper mesh, neon tubing).

‘Plain art’ might be a better translation: the artists gathered under the arte povera banner were working to strip away the conventional trappings of traditional art forms, and, in the process, to challenge the institutional structures in which those art forms exist… 

Read the full article in The London Magazine, available online here.