feAture michelangelo pistoletto
Your Oggetti in meno [Minus Objects] of the mid-1960s presaged the I am thinking of your interdenominational place of meditation and
french theorist nicolas Bourriaud’s ‘relational aesthetics’ of the 1990s. prayer at the Institut paoli-calmettes, a hospital specialising in the
I’m thinking of works like Grande sfera di giornali [Ball of Newspapers, treatment of cancer in Marseilles. How is it possible to make art of
1966] and the topicality of Metro cubo di infinito [Infinite Cubic Metre, this kind?
1966]…
In Marseilles, a multiethnic, multireligious, multicultural city, in a hospital,
Relational aesthetics, if you want to tie it to my work, is born out of which can be just as much a place of illness and pain as it is a place of
the Oggetti in meno, with which I moved from the diversity of objects cure, I didn’t want to make an artwork that eliminated the social – in
to the diversity of people, from different ways of confronting art and this case the religious – but an art that might play an active role in its
therefore positioning it in relation to language and to vision. I made a reinterpretation. In my work, the transcendent always arrives at the
sphere of newspapers, took it round the streets and involved the public edge of the immanent, always returns to the immanent and brings it
by inviting them to play with it. It symbolised openness, escape from towards an imagination of what can be done in a universe in which man
the doors of museums and galleries, a testament to the unorthodox, is the vital part.
even heterodox, aspects of art. So the Grande sfera dei giornali can be
representative of a heterodox system, of something that grows but You have frequently spoken of ‘the freedom of art’. what do you
remains immobilised in the interior of the space: it’s the growth of the mean by that?
objective phenomenon as far as the point where it paralyses itself in the
interior of the space. Metro cubo di infinito is one cubic metre of space, I discovered the freedom of art when, as a youth, I had my first
and at the same time, the space is infinite. It makes the singular and experience with the artworld. Art was not subdued, and the artists
everything an indivisible system. The connection between these two threw themselves in and out of it. This was the freedom that I had the
extremes occurs in the imagination, but at the same time it’s verifiable: fortune then to find. Today art is subjected to the economy.
all you need to do is open the cube and look at its extension.
finally, in your research a phrase stands out: ‘You need to prepare to
even your rag aesthetic predicted a certain type of art. I’m thinking of be.’ what does this mean?
the category of the shapeless…
As an artist I am intersected by the relationship between art and the
The rags are consumerism consumed, the end of consumerism, the products of an artist. The productions of an artist are indistinguishable
beginning of the ridiculous. They are recycled, representing the fashions from the artist. I am the product. It is not possible to consider the
that are continually consumed. Venere degli stracci [Venus of Rags, 1967] phenomenon of the creator outside of his or her productions. If one
is memory, the immanent thing that sustains changes in fashion. considers the universe to be a work, then whoever created the universe
is the work. You could call this ‘being’. One therefore has to prepare to
You have accepted a new identity, moving from subjective individual be the subject and the work. Because if the work is the universe, each
to a collective subject born from artistic creation. why? one of us is the work, the universe, art – if we manage to transport that
I think that to transform society you need collaboration, cooperation which is the religious-political-social phenomenology into the artistic
extended to the highest levels. The rest of human creativity shows it experience.
has produced extraordinary results (science, technology, economics,
philosophies) and recently has even developed destructive, iniquitous, Translated from the Italian by Laura Allsop. The Painting of Modern Life,
dangerous realities. I think that those who make art should feel with work by Michelangelo Pistoletto, will be on view at Castello di Rivoli,
responsible for progress and its consequences. Art is fundamentally Rivoli (Turin), through 4 May. See listings for further details
a representation of human creative capacity and therefore needs to
become the centre of a transformation of this use of creativity.
You have often maintained that the artist is a sponsor of thought. works
can you explain your relationship with a sponsor such as Illy?
(In order of appearance)
Installation views from Michelangelo Pistoletto,
With Illy it was clear from the start that our espresso cups would be
simon Lee Gallery, London, 22 november – 26 January
different from what preceded them. They would contain ethical as well All images
as aesthetic messages. For example, those by Rufus Willis (an English
courtesy simon Lee Gallery, London
architect that did his residency project with us) in 2004 represent
metropolitan buildings near to shanty towns. Or even the 2002 ‘no
water, no coffee’ series by Maria João Calisto, and many others. In this
way, art promotes thought.
You have said that the artist needs to be everywhere. perhaps today
there is the risk of an art that confuses itself with other forms of
expression, such as design and fashion…
For me, today, the message of responsible social transformation is the
artistic concept. Wherever there is this concept, there is art.
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