Jannis Kounellis

Kounellis was associated with the Italian arte povera movement of the 1960s, which emphasized the use of simple, everyday materials in art. He frequently used fire and carbon-based media such as charcoal and coal in his drawings, sculptures, and installations, as allusions both to mythology and industrialization. In this work, Kounellis used a sharp tool or stylus to incise the delicate outline of a human face into layers of crushed charcoal. He compared it to a drawing made on the surface of water, which lasts for only a moment before dissipating.