In celebration of artist Jannis Kounellis (1936 –2017) and the recent publication of the definitive monograph on his career, Jannis Kounellis, Magazzino Italian Art Foundation and Phaidon presented a reception and conversation on Kounellis’ life, work, and enduring influence.
Curator and author of Jannis Kounellis, Philip Larratt-Smith, and Magazzino’s new Scholar-in-Residence, Francesco Guzzetti, discussed Kounellis’ contributions to Arte Povera and the contemporary art world at large. A special screening of a conversation direct from Italy with art historian Bruno Corà was also presented.
At a moment of posthumous recognition of Kounellis’ artistic contributions, between the solo exhibition currently on view at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in New York and the publication of Phaidon’s monograph, Magazzino was pleased to provide a platform for the public to more deeply engage with Kounellis’ legacy and share insights with the public on his influence in the Arte Povera movement and beyond.
With over nine works and an entire gallery dedicated to Kounellis currently on view at Magazzino, ranging from early paintings to sculptural works made in the last decade, audiences had the opportunity to experience Kounellis’ oeuvre first-hand.
A key member of the Arte Povera movement in Italy, Kounellis’ unconventional paintings, installations, sculptures, and exhibitions, such as his 1969 exhibition of twelve live horses at the Galleria L’Attico in Rome, brought new vibrancy to the contemporary art world. Originally from Greece, Kounellis moved to Rome in 1956, where he studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti and made Italy his home.
Though he identified as a painter throughout his career, Kounellis’ practice employed a variety of materials, including organic materials, fragments of statues, and everyday objects evocative of history and ancient myths. In his work, Kounellis communicated his own critical and political understanding of history and used the past to explore the present.
The event was open to the public.
Background information on the participants follows below:
Book presentation and conversations with Philip Larratt-Smith and Francesco Guzzetti, with special conversation from Italy featuring Bruno Corá
Saturday, December 1, 2018
3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
The talk began at 4:00 p.m., following a reception at 3:30 p.m.
Magazzino Italian Art Foundation
2700 Route 9, Cold Spring, NY 10516
Participants:
Philip Larratt Smith
Philip Larratt-Smith is a writer and curator based in New York and the author of the survey text for the new book Jannis Kounellis (Phaidon, November 2018).
Bruno Corà
Bruno Corà is an Italian art historian, critic, curator and writer. He is currently the president of the Burri Foundation and has curated several international art biennials such as Dakur, Gubbio and La Spezia. He was the director of Palazzo Fabroni Contemporary Visual Arts of Pistoia, the Center for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci of Prato, CAMeC (Center of Modern and Contemporary Art of La Spezia), as well as the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Lugano. Corà has curated exhibitions of international artists such as Giuseppe Uncini, Vincenzo Agnetti, Alberto Burri, Louise Nevelson, Yves Klein, Alighiero Boetti, Lucio Fontana, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Fausto Melotti, Enrico Castellani, Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, and Francesco Lo Savio. He is also the author of more than three hundred essays and exhibition texts, as well as various books and monographs about contemporary artists. His writing has been published in international newspapers and specialized magazines.
Francesco Guzzetti
Francesco Guzzetti holds a doctoral degree in History of Modern and Contemporary Art from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Most recently, Guzzetti was the Lauro De Bosis postdoctoral fellow at the department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University in 2018. He was also the postdoctoral researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in 2017 and was a visiting scholar at CUNY Graduate Center and research fellow at the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York in 2014-2015. His dissertation dealt with the work of the Arte Povera artists within the international network of Post-Minimalist and Conceptual Art in the early 1970s. Building on his doctoral thesis, Guzzetti is currently working on a publication about major issues of visual in Italian art in the 1970s. Guzzetti has participated in major international conferences and published several essays addressing numerous subjects in art history and the history of collecting and criticism, spanning from the late 19th century to Postwar and early Postmodernist Art.