In a time that accustoms us to excess, the essential speaks to us once again with powerful clarity. The exhibition Arte Povera. The Beauty of the Essential, hosted in the gallery overlooking Lungarno Cellini, brings renewed focus to a movement that transformed the poverty of means into a richness of vision, placing raw materials at the center of a new aesthetic and political awareness.

Through the works of artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Penone, and Gilberto Zorio, the exhibition narrates the urgency of a quest which, since the 1960s, has embraced a direct language—made of everyday objects, natural materials, and minimal gestures—in opposition to rampant consumerism and the artifice of official art.

Within this dialogue, Michelangelo Pistoletto emerges as a central figure. From the very beginning, his work has embodied a deeply relational and visionary approach: by mirroring the world and reflecting the viewer, he has turned art into a space of co-creation and awareness. On display, two of the master’s works symbolically convey his poetic and formal trajectory: Self-Portrait (1962–1986), a silkscreen on polished stainless steel in which the artist’s body dissolves and multiplies in the viewer’s reflection; and Score in Black – E (Portrait of Eunmi Lee) (2010–2012), which weaves together portrait, rhythm, and memory, projecting the human figure into another dimension, suspended between presence and abstraction.

In both works, art becomes a space of relationship, a gesture that engages the other, a device for activating new forms of perception and responsibility. This very principle inspired the founding of Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto Onlus, where artistic commitment is transformed into social, educational, and environmental praxis. Here, the work Third Paradise—a symbol of a possible balance between nature and artifice—becomes a generative vision, present not only as a permanent installation but as the conceptual matrix behind every transformative action.

Although not explicitly featured in the Florentine exhibition, the ethical and poetic horizon of the trinamic formula continues to resonate in the work of Cittadellarte’s founder. Thus, his participation in Arte Povera. The Beauty of the Essential is far from merely celebratory: it is a call to responsibility, an invitation to view art as a gesture that leaves a trace, that listens, that sows the seeds of the future.

Cover image: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Self-Portrait (1962–1986)