A museum dedicated to works from art dealer Ileana Sonnabend's legendary collection opened this past weekend in the Renaissance city of Mantua, Italy, thanks to a partnership with the Sonnabend Foundation. The nearly 100 artworks on display, valued at $270 million, include masterpieces by Pop artists, Arte Povera sculptors, and contemporary artists. With her second husband Michael Sonnabend, Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007) opened Sonnabend Gallery in 1962 in Paris.
THE PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS a Black man in rags and fetters being led through the street by a white man robed in white, trailed by a flock of spectators. The year was 1968, the setting an arts festival in Amalfi called Arte povera più azioni povere (Poor Art Plus Poor Actions); the scene was part of a play, L'uomo ammaestrato (The Trained Man), created by the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and his theater collective, Lo Zoo.
'Arte Povera' is a term that was coined by Germano Celant in the late 1960s and used to describe the radical and anti-establishment art movement, humble in its materials, that was prominent for the following decade and for which Penone was an important figure. An emphasis was placed on the social and cultural shifts at the time, though Italy had, in this respect, never really found stability.