Albatros is an old fishing boat from Fiumicino, marked by the salt water of the sea, the wind and time. The peeling white paint reveals the raw planks, partly rotten and pervaded by rust. Jannis Kounellis (born 1936 in Piraeus; died 2017 in Rome) had the boat cut into pieces for the Metropolis exhibition at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin in 1991, before rearranging the individual parts for the Galerie Kewenig ten years later.

Kounellis transforms the boat used in this installation, once a maritime means of transport for the fishing industry and a maltreated everyday object, with its connotations of vastness, travel, perseverance and decay, into pure material in these outstanding works, charged with the experiences of human culture, its history and its myths.

EXHIBITIONS

2001, Galerie Jule Kewenig, Frechen, Germany; 'Jannis Kounellis: Albatros & The Gospel According to Thomas'
2002, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium; 'Jannis Kounellis'
2008 – 2010, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, France; 'Jannis Kounellis'
2010 – 20011, Palazzo Ducale, Genoa, Italy; State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Greece; Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne Metropole, France; 'Isole mai trovate'; 'Islands Never Found'; 'Îles jamais trouvées'
2014, Modern Art Oxford, Britain; 'Jannis Kounellis'
2015, De Zee Oostende, Belgium; De Zee: Salut d’honneur Jan Hoet
2016, La Monnaie de Paris, France; 'Jannis Kounellis'
2022 - 2023, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; 'Jannis Kounellis in Six Acts'; 'Jannis Kounellis en seis actos'