Arte Povera

One of Italian contemporary artist Michelangelo Pistoletto's most famous works, "Venus of the Rags", has been burnt to cinders in a suspected arson attack in Naples, authorities said on July 12.

Regarded as a pioneer of the Arte Povera movement, Italy's Pier Paolo Calzolari is showing work for the sixth time at the Bernier/Eliades Gallery (bernier-eliades.com), through January 26. Titled "Demons and Dew," his new show is described by the curator as "a meditation on the transience and delicate beauty of everyday life."

The Embassy of Italy in Turkey has brought to Ankara an important exhibition of Italian contemporary art that represents a rich kaleidoscope of artistic trends and techniques of established masters and emerging young artists.

Galleria Continua S.R.L, a prominent Italian art gallery with branches worldwide, has filed a lawsuit against Orhan Dağhan Özil, the owner of the Artist Art Gallery in Istanbul's Nişantaşı neighborhood, alleging that Özil did not return millions of euros worth of works of Italian painter Michelangelo Pistoletto.

The Bernier/Eliades contemporary art gallery in the downtown Athens neighborhood of Thiseio is hosting an exhibition of watercolors by Athens-based Italian artist Paolo Colombo. Colombo worked with some of the pioneers of the Arte Povera movement in Torino during his youth.

The Bernier/Eliades Gallery presents an exhibition of works by Italian Arte Povera pioneer Μarisa Merz, the movement's only female proponent, comprising paintings and sculptures that transform everyday materials like copper wire, clay and wax. Among the displays are many that featured in a retrospective on Merz at the Metropolitan Museum of New York last year.

After the loss of the painter Dimitris Mitaras, the renowned man of Art, Giannis Kounellis died in Rome at the age of 81, leaving a huge legacy behind him for the next generations.