Jannis Kounellis

curated by Bruno Corà
September 24, 2006 – February 11, 2007
Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Via Solari 35, Milano

Set up by the artist, day by day, in an tireless process of construction, adjustment, and reworking of thoughts and gestures accumulated over the previous decades, the solo exhibition of Jannis Kounellis at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro is itself a work: an unrepeatable act, in line with the image dear to the artist. Unique and specific is, in fact, the intentionality, vigorously shaped by the vast and available spatiality of the Foundation.

Symbol of twentieth-century Milanese industry, the former Riva & Calzoni turbine factory, now the home of the Foundation, experiences a second chance on this occasion. This new life emerges, without any didactic approach, from the poetic juxtaposition of forms, geometries, and materials (iron, coal, burlap, wood, stone...). The history is not interpreted, but rather accompanied with levity, as described by Bruno Corà, curator of the exhibition, in his essay in the catalog. Mostly concentrated in the large “nave” of the ground floor – with the exception of the grand piano, a reworking of a 1972 piece, here placed atop a stack of sheet metal – the exhibition, which gathers over twenty works, unfolds around several archetypes (the labyrinth, the light, the sail evoking the journey...).

As Corà wrote: “Conceived as a vast plastic organism, this great creation by Jannis Kounellis – one of the most articulated and vigorous of recent years – carries within its central axis a morphological concatenation resulting from a single emotional design. At the base of this imaginary structure lies the labyrinthine spatial path, which drags everything with it in its enigmatic mark of mythical destiny. On this framework, in which the metamorphic rule supports the entire poetic tension, Kounellis traces his 'fresco' in space, with a ‘stain-like’ dramaturgy that involves, together with the place and the city, the problematic actuality of an entire history, approached with the tools of an emblematic language that does not abdicate its constructive dream and the idea of a possible development of its imaginary premises.”

The phase of the setup also represented an extraordinary creative workshop offered to cinema and photography. Ermanno Olmi "followed" the artist throughout the entire process, capturing his comings and goings in the space, his working method, and the spiral-like flow of thought that absorbs the personality of the places and progressively transforms them. The film was presented that autumn at the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro.

In turn, Carlo Orsi photographed the "set" of the installation, also capturing the affectionate friendship triangle that unites Jannis Kounellis, Ermanno Olmi, and Arnaldo Pomodoro. Orsi's shots form the backbone of the catalog, designed by Studio Cerri & Associati and published by Skira.