Italian Avant-garde

Dictionary entry

1. Arte Povera 1967–1970s / Style

   Uses non-precious, changing materials — earth, branches, cloth, stone, fire, metal — to intervene in art's commodification and industrial values.

2. Spatialism 1947–1968 / Style

   An Italian movement that slashed and punctured the canvas to open painting from two-dimensional illusion into actual space. The darkness behind the cut appears as real depth, and the support itself becomes the work. The precedent that turned breaking a material's surface into a formal language.

3. Aeropittura 1929–1939 / Style

   The late development of Italian Futurism, which declared the view from an aircraft to be the condition of painting. Plunging perspective, whirling cloud and an earth that turns over fix the sensation of speed and altitude on the canvas. A rare case of a style made out of the height of the viewpoint.

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