Sun 18 Sep 2022 to Sun 24 Dec 2023
46 rue de la Ferté Gaucher, 77169 Michelangelo Pistoletto: 60 ans d’identités et d’altérités
Wed-Sun noon-6pm
Artist: Michelangelo Pistoletto
version française ici
Galleria Continua presents a new solo exhibition by Michelangelo Pistoletto 60 Ans d’Identités et d’Altérités, a project that unites works from various phases of one of the most important protagonists of the Arte Povera movement’s work, illustrating the mutable nature and continuous evolution of the artist’s research.
The exhibition begins out in the open with the work Il tondo delle otto porte in which it’s possible to recognize the “Segno Arte”, an element characterized by the intersection of two triangles, that would frame a human body with its arms raised and legs apart; it’s a personal symbol, different from religious, political or advertising symbols, that provides the key to enter through art’s door creating an intimate and shared space.
Continuing on to the ground floor, the visitor is greeted by large installations that create a bridge between the space and the general public that frequent it. Suspended Perimeter – Love Difference is an example of this: this work, composed of a series of mirrors placed in a circle, aims to reflect on the concept of humanity, sublimating the differences to be found both in individuals and social groups. Another example is Labirinto e Grande Pozzo which is capable of simultaneously provoking disorientation and will power. In the middle of the work there is a well, its bottom made of mirror that leads to a losing of the self and a consequent promise of future discoveries.
A recurrent symbol is the Terzo Paradiso; made up of a reconfiguration of the mathematic infinity symbol, it represents a fundamental concept in Pistoletto’s artistic practice, which is based on the fusion of the “First Paradise” (in which human beings were completely integrated into nature) with the “Second Paradise” (the artificial world developed through science and technology). The last dimension, depicted in the symbol of a third central circle, represents the third phase of humanity that is realized via creating a balanced connection between artifice and nature, taking the form of a passage to an unprecedented stage of global civilization, indispensable for insuring the human race’s survival.
Another important work in the exhibition is Porte Uffizi, an environment that is made up of a series of rooms that hold the names of the various offices of Cittadellarte, a project started by Pistoletto with the intention to inspire and produce a responsible societal change through ideas and initiatives of a creative nature. Each office is dedicated to a specific area: Art, Education, Ecology, Economy, Politics, Spirituality, Production, Work, Communication, Architecture, Fashion and Nutrition. The visitor can subsequently cross over this spatial representation of Cittadellarte’s philosophy that for more than twenty years has operatively brought an artistic intervention into every part of civil society in order to contribute to shaping the deep epochal changes that actually occur.
The exhibition continues on the first floor with other works, such as the Quadri Specchianti series that depicts Cuban people, the images for which were selected by the artist after his first trip to Havana in 2014. We then find Mar Mediterraneo founded in 2002 in Biella at Cittadellarte, with the aim of creating new perspectives that transcend cultural diversity borders. Finally, it’s worth mentioning the historic piece Sfera di Giornali, made in the 1960s as a physical articulation of the dynamic and evolving everyday events of the time. At the end of 1967, Pistoletto reproposed this sphere rolling it through Turin, subsequently giving it its name Scultura da passeggio.
MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO
Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in Biella in 1933. In 1962 he created the Mirror Paintings with which he quickly achieved international recognition. He is considered one of the precursors and protagonists of Arte Povera with his Oggetti in meno (1965-1966) and the Venere degli stracci (1967). Starting from 1967, outside traditional exhibition spaces, he conceived and created actions that constituted the first manifestations of the “creative collaboration” that he would go on to develop over the following decades, bringing together artists from different disciplines and increasingly wider sectors of society. In the nineties he founded Cittadellarte in Biella, placing art in relation to different areas of society in order to inspire and produce a responsible transformation of society. He has received countless international awards, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the Venice Biennale in 2003 and in 2007 the Wolf Foundation Prize in Arts “for his constantly creative career as an artist, educator and activator, whose tireless intelligence has given way to premonitory art forms that contribute to a new understanding of the world ”. In 2017 his latest book edited by Actes Sud, Hominitheism and Demopraxy, was released, a manifesto for a regeneration of society published by Chiarelettere. Works by him are present in major contemporary art museums.