Jannis Kounellis was born in Pireo in Greece in 1936 and from 1956 he lived in Italy. He anticipated the start of the Arte Povera movement working with coil, metal, rags and other raw materials. He was considered as a main representative of the Arte Povera and has participated to all most important shows of the movement.

In 2002 at the Galleria Nazionale di Arte Moderna in Rome (GNAM) he had a solo show “Atto unico” where he positioned coil, stones and other material all around the gallery. The most important and recent exhibitions are the one in Stedelikj Museeum in Asterdam in 1990, at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and at the Kunsthalle in Amburg in 1995. In 2006 there is an important retrospective exhibition at the Museo d’arte contemporanea Donna Regina in Naples.

In 2016 another important show at the Monnaie in Paris and in 2019 the first retrospective after is death in 2017 at the Fondazione Prada in Venice, curated by Celant