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Iannis Kounellis
1936, Piraeus - Rome
Iannis Kounellis
1936, Piraeus - Rome
The work of Iannis Kounellis, like that of Luciano Fabro and Mario Merz, belongs to the Arte Povera movement. The name of this movement was used around 1968 for the title of several Italian exhibitions by related artists, and refers not to content but to the materials used in the works of art, such as coal, steel plates, rubber and sackcloth, which were considered anti-aesthetic at the time.
As they were not imbued with art-historical references, these materials functioned well as a medium for metaphors. The use of different materials in a single work of art meant that many Arte Povera works could express a contradiction between nature and culture.
The work Untitled (1979), acquired in 1988, consists of four heads of classical statues, attached to the wall by brackets and linked to one another by a black line. Some of the heads show traces of paint and soot. Closer inspection shows that the heads are just fragments of cheap plaster casts. They conjure up associations of a culture that is regarded as the foundation of the Western world, but which now appears only to be present in disconnected fragments. The artist’s addition – the hand-drawn single line that joins the elements – gives meaning to the fragments once again. In Kounellis’ view, it is only the artist who can still actively pass on the values of the classical Western culture through intellectual and artistic engagement, and thus provide stimuli in contemporary life.
Images
Collection Bonnefantenmuseum
Zonder titel, 1979
Zonder titel, 1979