Michelangelo Pistoletto

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About Michelangelo Pistoletto

Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of Arte Povera’s most significant protagonists. Since the 1960's his work has followed two profoundly linked paths, a body of conceptual sculpture grounded in the tenets of Arte Povera and an ongoing iconic series of mirror paintings, comprising figurative, graphic or sculptural images initially painted and more recently silkscreened onto the surface of mirror polished steel.

Michelangelo Pistoletto is one of Arte Povera’s most significant protagonists. Since the 1960's his work has followed two profoundly linked paths, a body of conceptual sculpture grounded in the tenets of Arte Povera and an ongoing iconic series of mirror paintings, comprising figurative, graphic or sculptural images initially painted and more recently silkscreened onto the surface of mirror polished steel. Representing his dual interest in conceptualism and figurative representation, together these bodies of work have earned Pistoletto enduring international recognition. Alongside this practise Pistoletto is the founder of the Citta del Arte in Biella, northern Italy, a cross-disciplinary foundation for research and the development of ideas. Pistoletto's mirror works quite literally reflect the social convictions at the heart of his thinking. For the artist, when we look at any work of art, we simultaneously regard ourselves. The works force us to inspect our relationship to them and as we do so comment on our place in the world we inhabit. Jeremy Lewison has written: ‘A Mirror Painting is a means to orientation in the world, of encouraging conscious experience of phenomena as experienced from the first person point of view, invoking perception, thought, memory, bodily awareness and social activity. It is a work of art in the world and the world in a work of art.’ Born in Italy into a family of art restorers and schooled in advertising in the 1940s and 50s, Pistoletto has exhibited extensively across Europe and the USA, with a recent retrospective of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, travelling to the MAXXI, Rome. His works feature in many public collections, among them Tate Britain, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Museo d´arte contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, MACBA, Barcelona and MuHKa, Antwerp.

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