feature michelangelo pistoletto
for michelangelo pistoletto, 2007 ended with a flurry of exhibitions, into the objective identity of existence. That’s why the figure, as primary
both in his native Italy and abroad. There were solo shows at Simon element, stands in relation to the space that surrounds it, as a universal
Lee Gallery in London, at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary element. This is the relationship between the individual and the universe.
Art in La Spezia, at MADRE in Naples (with a traditional intervention And between the individual and the universe are society, the world, life
in the Piazza del Plebiscito), as well as his inclusion in The Painting of – dynamics of existence that I now interpret through the activities of
Modern Life at London’s Hayward Gallery (the show will move on to Cittadellarte: ‘Progetto Arte’ was born as a search for human identity,
the Castello di Rivoli in Turin this spring). You could say that this was a therefore the spiritual, and the practice of everyday life.
demonstration both of his inexorable energy and of the fact that even at
seventy-four, one of the leading lights of the Arte Povera movement (a On the subject of Cittadellarte: where does it stand in relation to the
term coined by the critic Germano Celant in 1967 to describe a group existing public and private institutions that manage contemporary
of artists based in Turin, Milan, Genoa and Rome who used common, art?
everyday, valueless materials in their works) still has a lot left to say. But
even discussing the man, his works and his exhibitions doesn’t provide a Mine is not an Italian system. Cittadellarte is an international system
true picture of who Michelangelo Pistoletto is today. Behind him lurks a and is absolutely not in contrast with any other form of traditional artistic
creative energy linked not simply to the artist as a singular entity, but to institution. But it is looking to create situations that do not emerge
an extraordinary force capable of changing society as we know it. from museum systems. And this goes not only for Italy but also for the
In 1998 Pistoletto founded Cittadellarte, an art and creativity rest of the world. Museum systems everywhere are based on artistic
laboratory located in a disused textile mill by the river Cervo in Biella, individuality. And therefore, on the part of Cittadellarte, there’s a desire
Italy. The lab is the physical embodiment of the ‘Progetto Arte’ to develop something fundamental (like a heterodox art) rather than
manifesto (1994), in which Pistoletto proposed a new role for the artist, merely to explore new horizons.
dedicated to creating an interaction between all the spheres of human
activity that make up society. Cittadellarte is a large and organically Going back to your works… In Due visitatori al museo (1968) the
structured generator of artistic creativity that enters in direct interaction public sees reflected in the mirror both the present of today and, in
with communication, economy, teaching, nutrition, politics, production, the representation of the two visitors, the past – figures from a time
spirituality and work. Pistoletto himself describes this sort of art as that is no more. What does this double time signify?
heterodox, in opposition to the more orthodox structure embodied
by the traditional museum. Behind all this is a drive towards what the The photographic image, already immediately after the click, is memory,
artist terms ‘responsible social transformation’. In conjunction with this, the past. The images fixed in the mirror reinforce, with time, the idea
Cittadellarte also encompasses UNIDEE–University for Ideas (an of memory. A photograph, however, is always taken in the present.
international residency for young creatives from all over the world), So within my mirror paintings there are two different presents: that of
Love Difference (an art movement that aims to create a network for the photograph and that of the reflected image. There’s a temporal
figures from the Mediterranean cultural world) and lots more besides. dimension composed of a past, a present and a future continually
accommodated in the present, in which there is also the past. It creates
ArtReview: ever-new combinations, always different, not just from the continual
Let’s start from the beginning. After working on a series of increasingly change that occurs in the mirror, but in the relationship between the
large-scale self-portraits during the 1950s you had a turning point present and something that is really changed, and is visible today.
in 1961, which you have described as follows: ‘In 1961, on a black
background that had been varnished to the point that it reflected, I What is the ‘virtual’ today? And what is ‘real’?
began to paint my face. I saw it come toward me, detaching itself
from the space of an environment in which all things moved, and I was The virtual is all that is real, all that represents the real: a word can
astonished… The figure of a man seemed to come forward, as if alive, represent the real, just like an image. Pictorial representation and verbal
in the space of the gallery; but the true protagonist was the relationship description are the virtual elements, just like cinema, TV, photography.
of instantaneousness that was created between the spectator, his own In the mirror paintings the virtual coincides immediately with physical
reflection and the painted figure, in an ever-present movement that reality, is identical to three-dimensional time, even four-dimensional
concentrated the past and the figure in itself to such an extent as to time: that which we see in the mirror is mutation, change, the real
cause one to call their very existence into doubt: it was the dimension present. There’s a relationship between the real and the virtual, in a
of time itself.’ That episode led to your ‘mirror paintings’, to which we’ll nontraditional way .
come in a moment. But for now, what does it mean to represent the
human figure? You are one of the leading figures of Arte Povera. Forty years have
gone by since then. Why do you think that people today are so
Michelangelo Pistoletto attracted to that period?
The representation of the human figure is the core of identity.
A person wants to identify themselves, or more accurately, to recognise Because I think that Arte Povera was the last true art movement of the
themselves. But identity is a complex concept: it encompasses identity postwar period. Later attempts to create movements didn’t have the
in relation to the universe, to a before- and after-life, or all those things same success. Moreover, personal interpretations of art have become
we gather up within the term spirituality. People have a deep spiritual more successful. Of course there was the Transavanguardia in Italy,
need, and I chose to pursue that through the practice of art, rather than but I don’t see that as a real movement. I see it as a way of looking
through religion or philosophy. So I think the human figure is the artistic backwards; a true movement goes forwards.
element of personal identity, which is also, for me, a motif for research
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