Il giardino, I giochi, 1967

The weight of history and a sense of responsibility to the present animate the artistic research of Jannis Kounellis. After leaving Greece in 1956, the artist settled in Rome and began producing pictorial works that contained letters, numbers, and signs, or words extrapolated from commercial signs. Intentionally unrelated to references of a biographical nature or to the idea of a personal pictorial style, these works constitute an innovative language, through which the artist indicates his clear intention to move beyond tradition and adopt elements taken from everyday reality. [...]