Infinity. Michelangelo Pistoletto
Chiostro del Bramante. Rome
by
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Nuovo paragrafo
“Infinity, because art is limitless"
Michelangelo Pistoletto artist painter sculptor. Poor art
Nuovo paragrafo
Biography
Artist, painter and sculptor
Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in Biella in 1933.
He began exhibiting in 1955 and in 1960 he held his first solo exhibition at the Galatea Gallery in Turin.
His first pictorial production is characterized by research into self-portraits.
In the two-year period 1961-1962 he achieved the creation of the Mirror Paintings, which directly included in the work the presence of the spectator, the real dimension of time and also reopened the perspective, overturning the Renaissance one closed by the avant-gardes of the 20th century. With these works Pistoletto quickly achieved international recognition and success, which led him to hold personal exhibitions in prestigious galleries and museums in Europe and the United States during the 1960s.
The Mirror Paintings will constitute the basis of his subsequent artistic production and theoretical reflection.
"In diversity I have multiplied"
INFINITY, contemporary art without limits.
Michelangelo Pistoletto.
curated by Danilo Eccher
18th March – 15th October 2023
Fifty works and four large site-specific installations. More than 60 years of art, almost 90 years of life.
A narrative journey, according to the layout of the projects curated by Danilo Eccher and produced by DART – Chiostro del Bramante, complete and fascinating. Certainly not a traditional exhibition but a story, an experience that through the symbolic works of Michelangelo Pistoletto (Biella, 1933) - from the historical to the most recent, from 1962 to 2023 - takes you on an exciting journey into poetics and the world, the many worlds, of one of the masters of contemporary art.
An infinite number of ways of making art, an infinite number of ways of seeing, of changing perspective, of reading reality. At the center a single artist but in his many possibilities of being, of transforming, of depicting and representing himself, of telling. “A collective exhibition of a single artist”, in the words of the curator, because “in diversity I have multiplied”, as the artist declares. This is why, at the Chiostro del Bramante, Michelangelo Pistoletto is INFINITY: because art is without limits.
Michelangelo Pistoletto turned 90 in 2023 and in the Cloister of Bramante, a major exhibition of his, an opportunity to display the master's historical works in dialogue with Renaissance architecture as well as new productions, created specifically for the spaces of the Cloister, which will surprise you with their tireless creative energy.
The works within the exhibition cover almost the entire career of Pistoletto, from the sixties with the mirror paintings, Metrocubo di Infinito, Venere degli Stracci, Orchestra di stracci and Labirinto, the seventies with L'Etrusco and the series of Porte Segno Arte together with Autoritratto di Stelle up to more recent works. In the 1990s the Books, in the 2000s the mirror paintings as well as the projects linked to the formula of creation, Love Difference – Mediterranean Sea and Neon, at Terzo Paradiso.
FONT
Chiostro del Bramante.
Labyrinth
A symbol that takes us back to ancient legend, to the monster of Minos and Ariadne's thread.
In Michelangelo Pistoletto's site-specific work, the labyrinth is "a tortuous and unpredictable road" at the end of which the monster, that is, war, awaits us. What can we do? According to the artist we must not walk scared, but aware that we can find the light again thanks to our Ariadne's thread: the love of differences.
Moments of turning point and at the same time of suspension, in which the
doubt gives way to courage and the desire to move forward.
This is the work "Doors - Segno Arte" in which Michelangelo Pistoletto invites the viewer to cross one, two... six doors to abandon themselves to the discovery of what a foreign land has in store for us, a new place with transformative energy.
Surrounded by chairs symbolizing different cultures, the Mediterraneo table acts as a mediator of a dialogue that intertwines the social, political, scientific and religious elements. A small treasure chest, a precious space that unites three continents.
We are invited to ideally sit around the table, to reflect ourselves in the work, to recognize ourselves, find our roots and understand the differences, welcome them and treasure them.
LARGE SPHERE OF NEWSPAPERS
With "Great sphere of newspapers" Michelangelo Pistoletto highlights the process of circulation of news which, especially with This is the passage that takes us from yesterday's information to tomorrow's information"
With "Great sphere of newspapers" Michelangelo Pistoletto highlights the process of circulation of news which, especially with technology, grows to the point of becoming enormous, boundless. A growth that no longer has walls.
I am the others
Society, identity and community are themes that often recur within the current exhibition at the Chiostro del Bramante. Pistoletto's art invites viewers to explore the world with a critical and open gaze.
The underlying theme of much of his work is the idea of transformation, expressed as a dialectical movement in three times (past-present-future, initial state-opposition-overcoming, etc.). We could almost define him as the artist of change.
Infinity, contemporary art without limits
by Michelangelo Pistoletto
Chiostro del Bramante,
Rome
Venus of rags
"When I created this work in 1967 which combines a symbol of divinity and beauty with a pile of rags and waste from consumerism, I would never have thought that in the future, that is today, the African coasts would be submerged precisely by the debris of contemporaneity used and thrown away...". The author looks at The Venus of Rags, one of the most famous works of contemporary Italian art in the world, with the eyes of those who created it, prophesying 56 years ago a debate on consumerism that is still distant but also with an almost historian's gaze of himself."
