ARTE POVERA / TEATR UBOGI
Wroclaw, Grotowski Institute and Warsaw, IIC
October 9, 2025 – January 14, 2026
Promoted by Italian Cultural Institutes in Warsaw and in Krakow, and Grotowski Institute, Wrocław
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The Italian Cultural Institute in Warsaw and the Grotowski Institute in Wrocław host the first exhibition in Poland dedicated to the dialogue between Polish director Jerzy Grotowski, a central figure in 20th-century theater, and Arte Povera, the Italian artistic movement of the second half of the 20th century that is still best known internationally today.
The exhibition in Wrocław is held in the large room where Grotowski developed his first theatrical experiments, opening them to the public. The room is located on the first floor of the building where he lived and where the institute dedicated to him is located now. Arte povera / Teatr ubogi is the first exhibition that the Grotowski Institute hosts in that room, confirming the great importance of this project.
The exhibition aims to explore the conceptual affinities between Grotowski’s radical theatrical approach and the visual research of Arte Povera artists, while offering a reflection on the cultural link between Italy and Poland, the two countries in which these languages developed and established themselves.
The definition of Arte Povera, coined by critic Germano Celant in 1967, takes the adjective ‘poor’ from Teatro Povero, theorized by Grotowski. Arte Povera borrows from Teatro Povero the belief that the only necessary element on stage is ‘the relationship with the spectator in a direct, perceptive communion’: to achieve this, writes Grotowski, it is necessary to focus on the actor’s body and its relationship with the audience.
The exhibition displays works by the thirteen artists conventionally included by Celant in Arte Povera: Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio – focusing on actions, gestures, and interventions in which the artist’s body becomes the protagonist, just as in Grotowski’s theater. The works on display range from videos to photographs and multiples, forms of expression that share the possibility of being replicated – like theatrical plays – emphasizing the deep connection between visual performance and stage representation.
Arte Povera / Teatr ubogi is the third chapter in a series of exhibitions on Arte Povera, curated by Ilaria Bernardi and promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation: the first was held in 2023 at the Wits Art Museum in Johannesburg, focusing on the evolution of the movement between 1967 and 1971; the second in 2024 at the National Museum in Bucharest, focusing on its international diffusion thanks to Romanian gallery owner Ileana Sonnabend.