Protagonists and masterpieces of poor art from Tornabuoni in Florence – Carlo Franza’s blog

Tornabuoni Arte inaugurated, Thursday 17 April 2025in the Florence headquarters, the exhibition Poor art. The beauty of the essentiala tribute to the movement, theorized by the art critic Germano Celant, which deeply marked the art of the second half of the twentieth century, bringing together some of the historical masterpieces of its main protagonists, including Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio.

The term “poor art” was coined the first time by Germano Celant in 1967 in an article “Poor art. Notes for a guerrilla”, published by the magazine Flash Art, A provocative text that described a group of artists operating in Turin whose work went beyond the boundaries of art and its institutions, in total contrast to the post -war cultural hegemony and the commodification of the art world. Artists with the most disparate practices, moved by similar stimuli and stresses, united by a research by the essential and a profound questioning of the relationship between man and nature. Although having never signed a manifesto, many of them continued to exhibit together, under the auspices of the movement. And although some have moved away from the poor aesthetic over time, their work has continued to bring the influence of those training years.

Poor art. The beauty of the essential, Organized by Tornabuoni Arte, recalls the revolutionary spirit that permeated the movement and that deeply changed the nature of art, placing the emphasis on the radicalism of its participants, who have challenged the pictorial conventions and revealed the poetry of the newspaper.

“The poor work” is marked from an organic, physical point of view by the simultaneous presence of empty and full voids, highlights Bruno Corà, art critic and president of the Alberto Burri Foundation, in his contribution within the publication Poor art, dialogues (Form Edizioni, 2024). “An open work” that leaves room for the intervention of the viewer who contributes to the determination and completion of the aesthetic message, as in the work of Pino PascaliOf Michelangelo Pistoletto and other artists represented here.

A visual language at the same time heterogeneous and inclusive, of protest and poetic, which has anticipated some of the most urgent issues of our time, such as the notion of fine arts, ecology and colonialism, and continues to have a significant impact on contemporary artistic creation.

On display we find a nucleus of works by Alighiero Boettimade between the late sixties and the late seventies, emblematic of that period, which demonstrate its absolute creative freedom, expressed in non -predictable techniques and materials, such as Mimetic (1967) – exhibited on the occasion of the first exhibition on Poor Art, organized by Germano Celant, in ’67, at the La Bertesca Gallery in Genoa – or Get into the world the

world (1975), a combination of letters, words and signs, made with the biro pen. As Agata Boetti, director of the Alighiero Boetti Archive, points out, “if we carefully observe the works of the sixties, we see that the fundamental concepts of Boetti’s work are already present”. The themes of randomness, time and writing are also found in the artist’s most famous series, such as the subsequent ones Maps.

Mario Merzpresent with a series of pictorial works on paper and cardboard, relating to the early eighties, it is among those who have explored more deeply the artistic potential of the world that surrounds us, through a great political consciousness and a deeply militant attitude. The artistic path of Pier Paolo Calzolari It is documented, however, by a series of works made of “poor” and alternative, natural and perishable materials, such as salt, tobacco, leaves, candles on cardboard, of the late sixties, and by others more recent such as Hero, of 1986, or Mirror, of 1990.

The exhibition also focuses on those figures who have not been part of the canonical group of poor art but which, above all, at the beginning shared the ideals, such as Gianni Piacentino And Mario Ceroliinvited by Celant in Genoa in 1967, considered a bit the precursor of the movement for the use of rags, cartoons and wood which defined its stylistic figure. The series of works that we find in this context, from Eternal glory to the fallen for painting1972, a Gala evening1981, e Imbalance1988, are examples of his extraordinary creativity and emotional power.

Carlo Franza