JANNIS KOUNELLIS
1936, Pireo, Grecia – 2017, Rome, Italy
Jannis Kounellis was one of the leading figures of Arte Povera, a movement that revolutionised artistic language in the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Greece, he moved to Rome in 1956, where he trained at the Academy of Fine Arts. After early works involving signs, letters and numbers, he developed a practice based on simple, industrial materials such as iron, coal, wood, jute and fire, creating strong contrasts between opposing elements. His works, often large in scale, introduce a theatrical, immersive dimension, turning the viewer into an active part of the experience. From the 1970s onward, he created monumental installations and stage designs for opera, consolidating a powerful, recognisable language. He has exhibited in major international museums, from the Venice Biennale to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, to the Monnaie de Paris. His research, deeply tied to memory, labour and matter, established him as a central figure in contemporary art.
JANNIS KOUNELLIS
Untitled, 2005
Iron, paper, ink, jute sack, coal, steel cable, 200 × 180 cm
This work by Kounellis hits you without asking permission. It is made of simple, almost humble things: iron, paper, ink, a jute sack full of coal. But there is far more inside it.
The iron plate is cold, hard. On it, those white cards stained with black ink look dirty, imperfect, almost wounded. They are not elegant marks, they are real, direct gestures, as if the artist wanted to leave a physical, concrete trace, without filters.
And then that suspended sack. It weighs on you. You feel it even without touching it. It is labour, effort, memory. It belongs to a real world, not to the world of ideas. The coal inside is not just matter: it is energy, it is history, it is something that has burned and could burn again.
Looking at it, you don't think of a "composition", you think of a condition: a fragile balance between fullness and emptiness, between what remains and what has already passed. It is a work that does not try to please, but to make itself felt. And once it does, you don't forget it.