Marisa Merz UNTITLED (LIVING SCULPTURE) 1966

Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972, comprised of more than 140 objects and organized collaboratively by the Walker Art Center and Tate Modern, London, is the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on early work by the 14 key artists associated with the genesis of Arte Povera. Wiping clean the slate of art history, these artists adopted an egalitarian attitude toward both traditional and more mundane artistic materials (air, wax, mirrors, lead, newspaper, vegetation, neon, pipe, fabric), introducing a metaphysical and iconoclastic aesthetic that has had a profound effect on the art of today.

Alighiero Boetti PLANSIFERO POLITICO (POLITICAL MAP OF THE WORLD) 1969

Whatever the medium or the method, Arte Povera remains quintessentially Italian. Although it emerged out of a country in flux--in the mid-1960s the postwar economic boom of the "Italian Miracle" had deteriorated into social protest and upheaval, culminating in the May 1968 economic revolts and massive workers' strikes in 1969--this was not an art of disillusionment, but of hope and a radical belief in the transformative power of art and human endeavor. Arte Povera may have been the expression of a specific time and place, but artists across the world continue to follow its pioneering example.