The documentary materials reconstruct the experience of the Deposito d’Arte Presente in Turin (1967-1969). This fund represents an archival nucleus of fundamental interest, particularly for the study of the history of contemporary art within the Turin context of the second half of the 1960s, in which, among others, the Arte Povera researches were affirmed.
The material, granted by the heirs of Marcello Levi (1922-2014), who was the promoter of the Deposito d’Arte Presente, consists of correspondences, press reviews, accounting documents and photographs, and also offers a never-before-seen perspective on the background and working dynamics of a revolutionary and unconventional space.
The idea behind the Deposito d’Arte Presente was in fact to provide artists, critics, curators and collectors with a temporary, self-managed space in which to house, preserve and display contemporary artworks, and to encourage, through direct confrontation, reflection on artistic experiences in their own making. The Deposito d’Arte Presente – which was also an association in the traditional sense, as a venue for production and trade – eventually offered a stage for avant-garde music and theater experiences, such as the first performance, produced by the Teatro Stabile di Torino, of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s opera Orgia, a tragedy in verse consisting of a prologue and six episodes.