Arte Povera

* Survey essay by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev * Works: extensive colour plate section with extended caption descriptions for every artwork * Documents: comprehensive anthology of key texts from original sources * Artists' Biographies * Bibliography * Index

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is a writer and curator living in Rome, who has become an internationally recognized scholar of late twentieth-century Italian art. She has written extensively on the Arte Povera movement and published interviews and texts on artists such as Boetti, Pistoletto, Merz, Fabro and Kounellis. Bakargiev is also a noted curator of contemporary art internationally: her exhibitions include 'Molteplici Culture', Rome, 1992 and a homage to John Cage which she co-curated with Alanna Heiss for the 1993 Venice Biennale. She was part of the curatorial team for the 'Antwerp 93 European Capital of Culture', devising the major international survey, 'On Taking a Normal Situation and Re-translating it into Overlapping and Multiple Readings of Conditions Past and Present'. In 1996 Bakargiev curated a large-scale survey on Italian post-war artist Alberto Burri in Rome, Brussels and Munich. In 1997, she curated 'Citta-Natura': a city-wide exhibition of international artists including Anselmo, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Pascali and Kounellis, held in Rome. She is Chief Curator at the Castello di Rivoli, Turin, and was formerly Senior Curator at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. She was co-curator, with Iwona Blazwick, of 'Faces in the Crowd: Picturing Modern Life from Manet to Today', Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, and Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2004-5.

'Phaidon's Themes and Movements series seeks to provide the late 20th -century art history books of the future.' (Art Monthly) 'This is now the definitive English-language sourcebook on Merz, Pistoletto, Paolini and company, thanks to its rich selection of images and texts.' (Bookforum) 'Get hold of Arte Povera ... it is both compendium and critique, with artists' statements, a chronology and commentary. It contextualizes the work, and the pictures are great.' (Adrian Searle, Guardian)