By Ibarra C. Mateo

For the first time in Southeast Asia, the “Arte Povera: An Italian Landscape” exhibit can be seen at the Tall Galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila at the bank of the Central Bank of the Philippines.

The art exhibit opens a week after the critically acclaimed Philippine premiere of Gaetano Donizetti’s “Lucia de Lammermoor” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines featuring world famous Filipino tenor Arthur Espiritu as Edgardo di Ravenswood and French soprano Melody Louledjian as Lucia Ashton.

In the opera and the art exhibit, the Embassy of Italy in Manila collaborated with Filipino institutions and groups. In particular, for Arte Povera, the embassy worked with Security Bank and the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.

Arte Povera runs from Feb. 10 to April 30, 2020.

Arte Povera: Italian Landscape captures one of the most pivotal points in the history of Italian contemporary art in the 1960s through the 1970s.

“The Arte Povera movement broke boundaries in traditional art-making through new engagemenst with audiences and an experimental approach in making life and everyday objects integral to art,” the museum said in a statement,

The exhibit features the masterpieces of 12 Italian artists who gave birth to the Arte Povera movement, namely Jannis Kounellis, Marisa Merz, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio Pier, Paolo Calzolari, Francesco Arena, and Gianni Caravaggio.

With an enduring influence from their time to present-day art practices, Arte Povera responded to the sociopolitical milieu in Italy during the time, the museum said.

The era was marked by industrialization, mechanization, and instability of the economy.

As a reaction to the perceived dominating abstract modernism in painting, Arte Povera artists focused on sculptural works and installation by using assemblages of cheap throwaway materials evoking a distinct Italian aesthetic.

“Arte Povera emphasizes the physicality of our daily lives,” the museum said.

Arte Povera: An Italian Landscape is curated by Danilo Eccher, a well-known Italian art critic and curator who served as director of several cultural institutions in Italy since 1989, including the Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea di Trento, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna in Bologna, Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, and the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Turin.

Eccher eventually became an independent curatorial practioner in 2015, working on solo exhibitions of artists such as Jannis Kounellis, Albert Oehlen, Sean Scully, and Christian Boltansk.

Images from the Metropolitan Museum of Manila

ArtePovera #ItalianLandscape #EmbassyOfItalyManila #Jannis Kounellis #MarisaMerz #Mario Merz #GiuseppePenone #MichelangeloPistoletto #GilbertoZorioPier #PaoloCalzolari #FrancescoArena #GianniCaravaggio