Magazzino Italian Art is pleased to announce LUCIO POZZI: qui dentro / in here, an exhibition featuring a selection of vibrant and innovative abstract works that the Italian-born artist has produced over the course of his remarkable 60-year career.
On view from March 7, 2025, to June 23, 2025, the show, which honors the artist’s 90th birthday, offers an overview of his wide-ranging interests. Internationally known for figurative as well as abstract works, Pozzi is represented in this exhibition by vivid abstractions. The show includes paintings, sculptures, and wall reliefs in an extraordinarily diverse array of styles, revealing Pozzi’s artistic dexterity and his commitment to continual experimentation with a unique visual language.
Curated by David Ebony in collaboration with Magazzino Italian Art Artistic Director Paola Mura, the exhibition will highlight more than 30 works—from monumental canvases to intimate watercolors—that encapsulate many of the artist’s major, ongoing interests. His endeavors include installation, performance and a longstanding exploration of the emotional impact and intellectual challenge of reductive abstract compositions with a tightly controlled palette (often centered on four colors: red, blue, yellow, green, plus black and white), which have a personal significance for the artist, as well as universal appeal.
Curated in partnership with the artist, LUCIO POZZI: qui dentro / in here provides a snapshot of the extraordinary achievements of this prolific artist and how they have evolved over time. Pozzi’s abstract works correspond to both American Minimalism and the Italian Arte Povera movement, although he has maintained a singular vision. The setting of Magazzino Italian Art, with its permanent collection of major works by leading artists such as Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Piero Gilardi, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio, offers a rare opportunity to examine Pozzi’s shared concerns with Arte Povera. He favors unorthodox materials, unexpected thematic shifts, informal yet rigorous compositions, and an egalitarian, non-didactic approach that welcomes active viewer participation. The exhibition will be on view simultaneously with Maria Lai. A Journey to America.
Adam Sheffer, Director of Magazzino Italian Art, said, “Part of our core mission at Magazzino is to connect our historic collection of Arte Povera masterworks with the practices of contemporary artists informed by the movement’s legacy. Lucio Pozzi’s work is a sterling example of the ways that postwar art from Italy continues to animate debates in artists’ studios worldwide. We are enormously proud to present this exhibition in honor of his remarkable achievements.”
Paola Mura, Artistic Director of Magazzino Italian Art, said, “Presenting LUCIO POZZI: qui dentro / in here alongside Maria Lai: A Journey to America, within the broader context of the Arte Povera collection, offers a rare opportunity to deepen the conversation around both artists. This dialogue enriches our understanding of Italian art from the postwar era to today, inviting audiences to explore the interplay between these works and to appreciate the distinct qualities that define them.”
David Ebony, guest curator, said, “For much of his career, Pozzi has been known as an elusive multidisciplinary artist who traverses abstraction, figuration, photography and performance. This focused exhibition will pay close attention to the painting practice he has developed over six decades, articulating the variety of forms he has invented, as well as the anchors that have always guided his explorations.”
Lucio Pozzi said, “Any combination of ideas, materials and processes can produce art—it all depends on how it is carried out. I am keen on producing intense thought and emotion within the unique terms of every individual work I make. I loathe pre-deciding originality, novelty, consistency and style. They emerge without my knowing. I expect the viewers not to ask what I meant but to recreate the work as they view it.”
Among the highlights of LUCIO POZZI: qui dentro / in here are the curvilinear metal relief sculptures ELBOW and ELBOW TOO (both 1963) and the rarely exhibited three-dimensional sculpture QUARTET (1984), which suggests Pozzi’s ongoing interest in the natural environment of the Mid-Hudson Valley, where he lives and works part time. A large, prime example of the artist’s acclaimed “Rag Rug” series, THE DARKNESS OF THE SOUL (1996), will also be on view.