Special Exhibitions

Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972

1 June - 19 August 2001
Admission: £6.50/£4.50 (concessions)
Combined ticket (Arte Povera and Georgio Morandi): £10, £6 concessions

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Zero to Infinity brings to London for the first time the group of artists that propelled Italy from the periphery of the international art scene to centre stage during the latter half of the 1960s. In 1967 the Italian critic, Germano Celant, coined the phrase 'arte povera' to describe the work of this group. The term has never successfully been translated but 'povera' or 'poor' evokes both the group's anti-hierarchical approach to materials and their radical social and political attitudes. Zero to Infinity is the first major exhibition in this country to examine Arte Povera, from its genesis in Italy in the early 1960s to its emergence at the end of the decade as a major contributor to what had then become the immensely influential international movement known as Conceptual Art.

The exhibition includes the work of fourteen artists: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Piero Gilardi, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Guiseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio.

Arte Povera came of age in the context of the economic boom of the post-war `Italian miracle' and the subsequent student and workers' strikes of 1968. The artists of Arte Povera rejected the primacy of painting in the art of the time, and instead sought a radical redefinition of sculpture. Working in Milan, Turin and Rome, they collectively explored an enormously wide range of media, from such humble raw materials as coal or wool to manufactured and seductive ones such as silk or glass. They worked with living creatures and live energy sources and adopted a highly experimental approach to processes and techniques. In this way Arte Povera recast Italian artistic practice in the role of a philosophical quest into the modern world.

As the first major exhibition in Britain to concentrate exclusively on Arte Povera, Zero to Infinity not only brings to London iconic works which have never been seen here before but also includes a number of works from Italian private collections which will be shown in public for the first time since the 1960s.

Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-72 is co-organised by Tate Modern, London, and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and will be shown in both venues. It will subsequently tour to MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art), Los Angeles, and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington.

Find out more about this exhibition.