Jannis Kounellis exhibition to open at Olgiati Collection

The Giancarlo and Danna Olgiati Collection is set to host the exhibition ‘Jannis Kounellis: Io sono un pittore’ (I am a painter). Curated by Vincenzo de Bellis, the project aims to present painting as the primary interpretive lens for the work of Jannis Kounellis (1936–2017), offering a critical alternative to his common reputation as a leader of the Arte Povera movement or a master of installation.

The exhibition is centered on Kounellis’s own assertion, ‘Io sono un pittore,’ interpreted not as a claim to a specific technique, but as a posture toward reality. While he used traditional canvas for only a few years, the curator notes that Kounellis ‘painted’ throughout his life using materials such as iron, coal, fire, jute sacks, and coffee, as well as through space, silence, and memory.

The exhibition will feature a corpus of over 35 works spanning from the late 1950s to 2016, including rare or previously unseen pieces. Rather than a chronological timeline, the display is organized into thematic sections: painting as language, painting as matter and weight, painting as memory and silence, and painting as scene and icon.