Boettinbianchenero(1968)

In 1967, a few months after the famous exhibition Arte povera-Im Spazio at the gallery La Bertesca in Genoa (when the critic Germano Celant defined the first guidelines of arte povera), Alighiero Boetti, at the age of 27, had a solo show at the Turin-based gallery Christian Stein. The first part the film explores the works assembled with iron, wood and industrial materials (Eternit, camouflage fabric, enamel paint), then shifts to the reactions and relations with the works of the audience at the opening (the artists Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario Ceroli and Giulio Paolini, and the dealer Gian Enzo Sperone are recognisable). The black and white images are accompanied by a saxophone improvisation by Carlo Actis Dato. —Tate Modern