Jannis Kounellis

Born in Piraeus in 1936 but living in Rome since the mid-fifties, Jannis Kounellis is considered one of the pioneers of Arte Povera, a movement which seeks to construct installations using cheap and primarily “unartistic” materials such as sacks, coal, coffee, and gasoline. These unusual objects help the artist to create “pictures” which convey a sense of the forgotten forces of an archaic world.

This publication accompanies the latest work of the Greco-Italian artist, who has assembled his dynamic installation—titled Labyrinth—in the large pavilion at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. In the open-plan, seemingly endless hall, Kounellis has used sheets of metal to erect an apparently impenetrable labyrinth. In the various rooms resulting from this maze’s existence, we discover and explore works from the different stages of the artist’s creative development—it is as though we are on a journey through his life.