“The idea of Arte Povera was to react against Pop Art,” Massimiliano Gioni, the associate director and director of exhibitions at the New Museum, tells a crowd at Christie's in advance of the sale, Eyes Wide Open: An Italian Vision, which runs from February 5-14 at Christie's Mayfair location. “The manifesto of Arte Povera is titled, ‘Notes for a Guerilla War,’ so it was 1967, they were 27, 28, so they were looking at a dramatic fight against tradition…” Gioni says.In the video above, Gioni explains the birth of the movement as seen in the work of Post-War Italian artists Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni and Fausto Melotti and its apex in the works of artists such as Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, Mario Merz, Luciano Fabro, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone and Emilio Prini.