Marc Donnadieu

One of the traits that Arte Povera artists have in common is to deconstruct things and not to privilege the material as an end in itself. It is likely that, among the artists of the movement, there is also a distinction between material and materiality. Arte povera artists, for example, do not have sculpture as their goal. Rather, they seek the process, the experience; rather, they have a critical look at aesthetic production. To borrow the word, they are rather ‘anaesthetic’. As in a certain way, moreover, Celant recognised in the intuition of his exhibition ‘IM spatio, image, space’ the search for a different dimension. Besides questioning the material, the primacy of experience, which seems to me absolutely fundamental, the duality between man and nature, there is the refutation of the concept of stability, the impermanence of things. This analytical and conceptual dimension is in Italy a way of positioning itself in relation to the dominance of a model that would come from America. Text in English and French.

Curator Marc Donnadieu turns his critical gaze on Tornabuoni Art gallery’s post-war masterpieces and proposes a project based around the notion of creative destruction; a way of making that led to a total renewal of art in the aftermath of the Second World War. The exhibition is articulated around a simple alphabet, where 25 works by 22 Italian and international artists are assembled in a trilingual alphabet, with each letter introducing an artist and a disruptive action to which he or she has subjected the artwork: Enrico Baj “attacks” and Alberto Burri “burns”, while Arman “vandalizes” and Tancredi “zigzags”. This list, which is by no means exhaustive, is merely the starting point for an infinite repertoire of iconoclastic artists and verbs. The curator also pays homage to one of Tornabuoni Art’s most beloved artists: Alighiero Boetti, whose apparently playful works allow us to confront deep philosophical issues. Opening 30 years to the day since the artist’s death, An alphabet of order and disorder looks outwards to the world and to a new generation confronted with its uncertainties. Text in English and French.