Tate Modern hosts experimental Italian art show

Britain’s most popular modern art gallery was today gearing up for a new exhibition featuring cacti, coal and bags of coffee beans.

The Tate Modern’s Zero to Infinity is the first major exhibition in this country to examine the work of the Arte Povera group.

The movement propelled Italy to the centre of the international art scene during the 1960s and continues to influence many contemporary artists.

It was aimed at experimentation and working with a complete openness towards materials and processes.

The Tate exhibition features the work of 14 artists including Jannis Kounellis, which uses materials including iron, cotton, coal, coffee, wood, stones, earth, sacks, plants and live animals.

In his three-part work Untitled 1967, which was being installed by technicians at the Tate today, Kounellis placed cacti in an iron flowerbed and surrounded a pile of cotton wool with another iron structure.

Nearby there is a perch on the wall where a live parrot sometimes sits.

One of the artist’s most famous works was Untitled (12 Horses) in 1969 - he tethered a dozen live horses in a Rome gallery, manifesting a desire to make art that could not be sold.

The exhibition, which begins on May 31 and runs until August 19th will also feature a series of 10ft high marble feet by Luciano Fabro and Mario Merz’s seminal work Giap’s Igloo, an igloo made from dried mud.

Other artists featured include Alighiero Boetti who, in 1966, created Yearly Lamp, a light bulb in a wooden box which randomly switches itself on for 11 seconds each year.