Luxembourg & Dayan is celebrating the semi-centennial of the Arte Povera movement with Contingencies: Arte Povera and After, an exhibition placing select works by contemporary artists in dialogue with significant Arte Povera works from the 1960s and 1970s, crossing these historical moments in order to better understand the echoes between them. Amid the sociopolitical upheavals of the day, Arte Povera artists questioned the established languages of government, industry, and culture by proclaiming the porosity of the artwork, and exalting in its contingency: suddenly, a potential chemical reaction or simple transfer of energy could comprise the work itself. Contingencies considers the ways in which artists today similarly react to a world in turmoil by rejecting the autonomy of the art object in order to harness, engage, or interrupt systemic flows—whether those are organic, social, or technological— on a distinctly m
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