With a blockbuster Arte Povera show in the city, Art Basel Paris dealers are capitalizing on the notoriously hard-to-sell movement

Art Basel Paris dealers are taking advantage of the opportunity to bring several historic Arte Povera works as well as “Post-Arte Povera” creations influenced by them to the fair. The fair opens this week at the Grand Palais in the French capital.

With a major Arte Povera exhibition at the Bourse de Commerce, Pinault Collection in Paris, the niche movement of postwar Italian conceptual art of the late 1960s and 1970s is in the spotlight and enjoying long-overdue, wider recognition.

It’s a noticeable shift for the historic anti-establishment movement, which famously favored ephemeral and difficult-to-move as well as simple materials not intended for commercial gallery spaces. And while Arte Povera is valued by institutions, it attracts a dedicated but limited following of connoisseurs rather than a broader art-collecting audience.

For one thing, it doesn’t look good on Instagram. It has no hint of pop or minimalism and was commercially successful in the US and Northern Europe.

“When you buy these pieces, you really need to understand that what you value above all is the idea behind the work, which is more important than keeping it in pristine condition [due to the use of more ephemeral materials]. And to be honest, that already excludes a fairly large proportion of buyers,” said Ellen De Schepper, consultant at the Association of Professional Art Advisors (APAA). “The art historical significance of these pieces is much more important than the market value.”

However, winds can change, even if only slightly.

“We have been mobbed by people and are receiving a lot of interest,” said Joe La Placa, senior director of the Cardi Gallery at Art Basel Paris, at the VIP preview on Wednesday. He said the gallery immediately sold two large 1994 Jannis Kounellis sculptures to a Dutch museum at midday, offering them for 300,000 euros ($326,000) each – at the high end of the price range for the artist is still undervalued. There are a few other Arte Povera pieces “that will definitely disappear,” he added.

There are other exhibitions in commercial spaces throughout the city, both at Tornabuoni Art and Galleria Continua.

“Everyone is here, from all parts of the world,” La Placa added. “While things may have been difficult in the past, this is a turning point.” The gallery also features works by Arte Povera mainstays Michelangelo Pistoletto and Giulio Paolini. La Placa said such strong market interest in the movement, while stable overall, “was not the case last year.” The start of the year wasn’t bad, but it’s just tapered off and it’s going to pick up again. I’m very optimistic.”

Alighiero Boetti is considered a market-friendly darling of the movement, whose famous embroidered “Mappa” series set a record for the movement when a piece sold for $8.83 million at Sotheby’s in 2022. One such piece of his “Mappa” dates from 1989-91 and covered the entire large wall at the Tornibuoni Art stand at the fair. It sold early on the morning of preview day after being reserved in advance. The gallery could not share the price. To create these vibrant pieces, Boetti commissioned Afghan embroiderers to weave shapes and colors of flags onto a world map that changed depending on the geopolitics of the time.

Installation view of the exhibition “Arte Povera”, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, 2024. © Tadao Ando Architect & Associates, Niney et Marca Architectes, Pierre-Antoine Gatier Agency. Photo: Florent Michel / 11:45 a.m. / Pinault Collection.

In turbulent times, Arte Povera appears to be well positioned from a market perspective given the current market slowdown. “I think many people feel much more comfortable knowing they are buying a historically interesting piece whose price reflects the importance but not the craziness of the markets,” De Schepper said. “In times when the market is moving more slowly, it is always these historically significant categories that stand out more than the others,” she added.

Still others report that collectors who tend to be interested in Arte Povera are less involved in speculative acquisitions to begin with, meaning that market changes have less influence on which works they choose to acquire. All in all, De Schepper said she doesn’t expect “any drastic changes” to the movement’s market.

That was also evident at the show, where despite reported interest, dealers said there was still a lot of work to do on sales, consistent with reports of slower transactions at shows recently.

The Karsten Greve Gallery, for its part, is showing other works by Kounellis: two characteristic paintings and collages with black and white arrows, letters, crosses and checks. Speaking on behalf of the gallery, Mélanie Pourciel agreed that the Bourse exhibition helped take the artist “out of that niche aspect that he usually had before.” There are an enormous number of connoisseurs who come here specifically to see these works , which they supposedly recognize immediately.”

Also at Lia Rumma, a sophisticated stand featured a large Gilberto Zorio sculpture made of leather hides and an electric cable that heats up, turns red and immediately gives off visible heat. However, installing the piece, offered for 700,000 to 800,000 euros ($760,000 to $868,000), in a home is not a given, said gallery director Paola Potena.

“It’s not easy to live with them,” she said of Arte Povera, citing their fragility and how they are not necessarily “pleasant.” Museums are often better suited for this. The gallery is also showing a mirror piece by Michelangelo Pistoletto dating from 1962 to 2009 for 1.8 million euros ($1.95 million). It depicts a noose on the surface of the mirror, hanging at eye level so that it appears as if it is hanging around your neck when you walk towards it.

They can also help round out a collection. “If you want to counterbalance more commercial works by adding Arte Povera, for example [to a collection]“They add something intellectually significant,” De Schepper said.