In May 1968, two seminal exhibitions opened at the Jewish Museum. Recent Italian Painting & Sculpture was the product of a collaboration between the Jewish Museum and the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of New York. Curated by the museum’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Kynaston McShine, it showcased the work of established Italian artists.
At the same time, the museum opened Young Italians, which focused on Italian artists under the age of 40. This exhibition, which had previously been on view from January to March of 1968 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, was curated by former Jewish Museum Director Alan Solomon.
The year 1968 was a momentous time in countries across the globe, marked by young people rebelling against established institutions. In Italy, major universities were occupied by students, and 100 artists – including several in this exhibition – occupied the 14th Triennale in Milan. In the United States, political assassinations and protests dominated the news. Artists could not help but to engage with the world around them, and this was reflected in their work.
These two exhibitions were presented during a period of unprecedented curatorial boldness at the Jewish Museum. As director of the Jewish Museum, Solomon enthusiastically embraced contemporary art. During his brief time as director from 1962 to 1964, the museum hosted Jasper Johns’ and Robert Rauschenberg’s first solo exhibitions, among others. A few years later, McShine, who went on to a long and fruitful career at the Museum of Modern Art, curated 1966’s Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum, a landmark exhibition that defined the Minimalist movement.
It is no surprise that the judgment of these peerless curatorial minds has stood the test of time. The emerging artists profiled in Young Italians included greats like Michaelangelo Pistoletto, Pino Pascali, and Jannis Kounellis, among many other notable participants. A number of these artists became the most prominent practitioners of Arte Povera, a term that had only recently been coined by Italian curator Germano Celant to describe artists who rejected existing artistic conventions by using found or inexpensive materials in radical new ways.
Of course, there was much more in the air during the late 1960s than Arte Povera. Other young artists, like Valerio Adami, Enrico Castellani and Getulio Alviani, forged their own distinctive paths. Particularly in the exhibition devoted to the more established artists, it is fascinating seeing how ideas and movements that germinated in New York were reflected and refracted by these Italian artists. Many were influenced by or responding to the still-powerful legacy of Abstract Expressionism, as well as the more recent schools of Pop Art, Minimalism, Pattern and Decoration, Mechanical and Sound Art, and others. Many of the artists featured in the exhibitions embraced what was happening in New York. Others, particularly among the elder generation, continued to grapple with the legacy of Futurism and its dynamic abstractions, which maintained some influence on Italian artists well into the 1960s.
Although 50 years have passed since this exhibition was originally organized, it couldn’t be a more timely moment for the Italian Cultural Institute and Magazzino Italian Art to revisit it. Many of the featured artists, emerging or established practitioners in their time, are now read about in art history books. They not only influence today’s artists, but much of their work still speaks to our current, turbulent cultural moment. As we continue to try to make sense of the world around us, these works have much to say about where we came from and where we are going.