Arte Povera – A New Chapter explores how women artists have worked in the spirit of the arte povera movement from the 1960s to the present.

Arte Povera, directly translating as ‘poor art’, refers to an art movement that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s. Artists within the movement used modest everyday materials and found objects to challenge the norms of the art market and to bring artistic work closer to daily life. Instead of high-quality materials and polished aesthetics, the works emphasise processes of making, intentional unfinishedness and spontaneity.

While Arte Povera is traditionally portrayed as a male-dominated movement of decades past, the exhibition expands it into an ongoing artistic ethos that has been influenced by women artists internationally and trans-generationally. Women artists have enriched the spirit of Arte Povera by combining plain materiality with insightful critique of societal structures, questions of identity and specificity of their local contexts.

Arte Povera – A New Chapter presents original members of the movement and their contemporaries along with contemporary artists, including Marisa Merz, Ketty la Rocca, Carol Rama, Maria Lai, Laura Grisi, Isabella Ducrot, Eva Hesse, Nancy Spero, Ana Lupas, Anu Põder, Senga Nengudi, Kazuko Miyamoto, Bronwyn Katz, Mille Kalsmose, Dala Nasser and Finnish artists Karin Hellman, Liisi Beckmann, Kaarina Kaikkonen and Elina Vainio.