Publisher's Synopsis
As an artist, Kounellis has found his special location in Rome. At the age of 20, he made the journey there from Piraeus, the ancient port of Athens, and began his career. His works continue to bear the hallmarks of his Eastern Mediterranean origin, as well as testifying to his concern with the links between Russian Modernism and the Byzantine tradition.
Stephen Bann has not set out to write a conventional monograph about the artist. Rather, he looks at the underlying mechanisms in Kounellis's practice, suggesting the ways in which they are important in the broader context of late modernist art. He outlines the distinctive way in which Kounellis takes account of space as a necessary preliminary to working within it, and discusses the historical and cultural dimension to which Kounellis lays claim.