Jannis Kounellis survey to open at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis in 2022

The show will include early works on paper that have never been shown stateside, as well as some of the artist’s final works, which will make their debut in the show. It will also be the rare Jannis Kounellis show held in the U.S.; the last survey of its kind was staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 1986, while the very last Kounellis retrospective was held in 2019 at the Fondazione Prada in Venice. In tribute to the unusual quality of Kounellis’s output, the Walker survey, curated by Vincenzo De Bellis, will be organized thematically, not chronologically.

Talking about the exhibition and the artist, Vincenzo De Bellis stated: “Jannis is an artist that moved all his life from one country to another to fulfill his dream of being an artist,” he said. “His works speak to memory, history, and migration—things which are very important today.”