Yannis Kounellis

'I was called an artist in the 1960s because they didn't know how to define a pile of coal. But I am a painter, and I claim my initiation in painting. Because painting is the construction of images and doesn't refer to as manner or a technique... I am asked if I am a realist painter, and the answer is no. Realism represents while  I present'. Yannis Kounellis, 1993.

Yannis Kounellis at Tate Modern.

Yannis Kounellis (1936-2017) was born in the Greek port city of Piraeus, and lived and worked in Rome from 1956. His early paintings were inspired by words and graphics found in street signs, which he gradually reduced to letters, numbers and basic symbols arranged over plain backgrounds. Though he soon expanded his practice to include performance and sculpture, he considered himself primarily a painter. Whether making pictures or using materials and objects that share the same space as us as viewers, he aimed to create powerful images, mundane and strange at the same time.

In the late 1960s Kounellis became a key figure of the Italian Arte Povera (poor art) movement. Artists associated with Arte Povera used ordinary materials of both natural and industrial origins and hoped to bring the experience of art closer to everyday life. At the time, Italy was undergoing a period of rapid social change, torn between industrial and agrarian life, tradition and innovation, antiquity and modernity. Kounellis' works express this clash of values by bringing together contrasting elements such as raw wood and steel beams, or strings of colourful glass hanging next to a mound of black coal.

Many of Kounbellis' installations subtly change the architecture of the gallery, like the stones blocking the passage between two rooms. Some suggest the presence and actions of people: in a work bringing together painting, sculpture and performance, an empty chair lies waiting for a cellist to play a painted musical score. Other works carry strong associations both sensorial and cultural, like those including bells and coffee beans. These objects have a rich history, evoking sounds and smells familiar to many.

Untitled, 1960-98, (steel panel, enamel on paper on 2 canvases, fabric, coal, 3 metal hoods and metal rod)

In this work, the artist hangs two fragments of drawings from the early 60s near the top of a steel panel. Kounellis often utilises metal sheets as blank backdrops or 'sheets of paper', on which he assembles his images. The two drawings on canvas are partially covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, while a sack of coal hangs from as metal rod. The composition draws attention to the physical properties of these objects, like the weight, gesture and pliability. Kounellis' use of these ordinary materials reflects the ambitions of Arte Povera aiming to unite art with everyday experience.

Untitled (Sack with Z), 2001 (steel, burlap sack, coal, paint and glass)

From 1989 to 2005 Kounellis made a series of boxes, produced in many ideantical copies, incorporating recurring elements from his past works. The stencilled letter Z on the sack resembles the letters, numbers and symbols of his early 'alphabet paintings'. The sack of coal in this work might allude to trade and commerce, recalling the artist's place of birth, Piraeus, the busy port city near Athens. Kounellis considered steel sheets as a kind of canvas of paper and his assemblages of real materials as paintings, 'because painting is the construction of images and doesn't refer to a ... technique'.

Untitled, 1960, (polyvinyl acetate paint and tempera on canvas)

Part of the series of canvases known as Figures and Letters or Alfabeti, made between 1959 and 1963. Kounellis painted them on large pieces of canvas, burlap or bedsheets he'd stretched across the walls of his house, like a mural. Initiallly he reproduced details of hand-made signs found around the city, such as placards from local shops. Here, the synmbols suggest a code or mathematical formula but ultimately carry no decipherable meaning. He also associated the signs with phonetic sounds, and sometimes he expanded these paintings into performance by reading them out loud.

Untitled, 1993, (steel bedsprings, metal hook and paint on wall)

A recurring element in Kounellis' work since the 1960s, the bedframe symbolises the measurements of the human body and how this shapes our living environment. A real bedframe, suspended from a meat hook, contrasts with the flat, yellow, painted square behind it. Its shape refers to one of the earliest works of geometric abstraction, Kasimir Malevich's Black Square, 1915. Kounellis often connected the colour yellow to the sunflowers and suns in Van Gogh's paintings, as well as to the gold background of religious icons. The work may be a dialogue between reality and abstraction, or between materiality and spirituality.

'I have seen the sacred in the common object. I have believed in weight as the right measure... I want the return of poetry by all means available: through practice, observation, solitude; through language, image and insurrection'. (1987)

Bells, 1993, (bronze bells, wooden beams, rope)

Kounellis was interested in the significant presence of church bells in the everyday life of Southern European communities. When this work was first displayed in Pistoia, Italy, the city's Romanesque cathedral was visible from the gallery windows. The artwork's hanging bells visually echoed those in the cathedral's tower, creating a dialogue between its solemn architecture and the sculpture's simple, raw materials.  Tethered to the beams, Kounellis' bells are now silent, but they also hold the potential to ring again. 'Bells represent language, a magnified human voice - and the enthusiastic roar of liberation'.

Coal Sculpture with Wall of Coloured Glass, 1999, (glass, steel, coal and paraffin lamp)

According to Kounellis, coal and iron are 'the materials that best evoke the world of industrial revolution'. The paraffin lamp alludes to the process of ore mining. Many of the suspended glass lumps appear to be natural: like coal, glass can form over millenia through the heat and movement of the earth. Both coal and glass speak of the encounter between geological process and human industry. Kounellis considered all his works to be subject to change and often adapted them to different contexts or architectural settings. He made this installation in 2005 by combining two separate works.

'I cannot separate the use of such a mass of coal from the dramaturgy which puts humanity at the forefront. The human being as protagonist of a social drama, of a suffering and marginalised humanity, the human being as a protagonist, with his body and gestures, of an epic which inhabits my imagination'.

Untitled, 1969, (stone)

Every time this work is displayed it's always installed in a doorway, performing the same physical 'blockage' of the threshold. The artist's instructions are to use stones that are sourced locally from the place where the work is exhibited. The wall is executed in a simple masonry style using blocks of irregular sizes,  often seen in farmland walls, and appears out of place in a gallery interior. The work may also allude to the blocked doors and windows of abandoned houses, heightening its suggestion of exclusion and threat.

Untitled, 1969, (burlap, chickpeas, coffee beans, green lentils, green peas, kidney beans, white beans and maize)

Seven burlap sacks filled with beans and pulses line up on the floor, evoking our personal connections to these staple foods. 'Burlap sacks... are tied to the idea of maritime commerce. You can find them in every Levantine harbour. But also in New York or in South America, the whole world over...A sack is also something which contains something else. A ship or a burlap sack are things which are grandiosely maternal'.

Untitled, 1979, (charcoal, paper, arrows and stuffed birds)

The outline of an imaginary 19th century townscape and smoking factory chimney may symbolise the rise of industrialisation. Two birds pierced by arrows, a jackdaw and a hooded crow, suggest that this was a violent and traumatic change. The chimney evokes the combustion process that produces the charcoal used to draw it: a process both creative and destructive. The birds were part of the original work made by Kounellis in 1979, the charcoal drawing is remade each time the work is shown. 

The five works on paper depict women's heads and loandscapes, also etched into thick and soot-like layer of charcoal. Kounellis compared these to images traced on a water surface: fleeting memories of people and places destined to disappear.

Untitled (Hanging Knife), 1991, (steel, knife, metal hook, etching on paper and glass)

Kounellis used knives in many of his works, often suspended or facing out towards the viewer in a way that suggests impending threat or violence. Here a single butcher's knive hangs from a meat hook over an etching featuring a hand-drawn circular motif. The spiralling lines evoke an energetic scrawling gesture. This hints at a similarity between the knife and the pencil: both are pointed instruments capable of leaving marks. The familiar and pristine appearance of the hanging blade, contrasting with the chaotic scribbled lines, only heightens the atmosphere of suspense and potential menace.