Arte Povera Makes Historic Debut at the State Hermitage Museum

For the first time, Italian contemporary art enters the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg with the exhibition 'Arte Povera: a Creative Revolution,' opening May 17, 2018. The show marks 50 years since the movement's birth and follows a 2017 agreement between Hermitage director Mikhail Piotrovsky and Piedmont's culture councillor Antonella Parigi, fostering four years of exchanges between the Russian museum and regional Piedmontese institutions. Curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Dimitri Ozerkov, with support from Lavazza, the exhibition features about 60 works from the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art and other public and private collections. Iconic pieces include Michelangelo Pistoletto's 'Venus of the Rags,' Giuseppe Penone's 'Breathing the Shadow,' Luciano Fabro's 'Attaccapanni (of Naples),' Giovanni Anselmo's 'Interference in Universal Gravitation,' and Gilberto Zorio's 'Blue Pink Rose.' Works by Alighiero Boetti, Giulio Paolini, Pierpaolo Calzolari, Jannis Kounellis, Emilio Prini, and Pino Pascali are also on view. A section is dedicated to precursors like Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, Piero Manzoni, and Carla Accardi. The exhibition runs through August 16, 2018, at the Hermitage's Main Museum Complex.