"Pistoletto seeks the public to get involved with the work"

The Galería Elvira González (Madrid, Spain) hosts, for the first time, an individual exhibition devoted to Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto. Elvira Mignoni, Director of the gallery, comments the main features of the exhibition.

How would you describe Pistoletto as an artist? Which stylistic aspect would you highlight?
Pistoletto is an artist open to the world and people. He has worked in many different media, but if there is something that unites all his artistic practice is the emphasis on collaboration and participation.

Pistoletto’s pieces reflect the exhibition space and interact with it. In which way?
His work is full of people, is the same audience that fills the works and makes them exist. Thus, the gallery presents 7 large-scale works from his series Mirror Paintings. They are made of polished stainless steel that become mirrors. The pieces interact with the exhibition space by reflecting it and allowing the visitor to recreate his own reflection. 

Renaissance perspective had been foreclosed by the avant-gardes of the early 20th century
what is what brings in new Pistoletto in this regard?
As he himself explains, the Mirror Paintings "redefine the concept of perspective that so far involved a vision into the painting" Now the artwork goes further and is completed with the outer itself

Do you think that in the current art scene, there is sufficient work of political denunciation or we could consider Pistoletto an exception?
In the twentieth century there is no shortage of artists who work missing from a political perspectiv. Still, an artist Pistoletto is quite unique. For example in this exhibition the artist is not using the "mirror painting" with a formalist view. For him the mirror is a metaphor of history that teaches us  the past and forces us to reconsider the future and to take part of it It is also interesting to note his recent artistic manifesto "The Third Paradise", published in 2003 with some very interesting ideas on the progress of society.

What do you hope visitors to the exhibition will take away with them?
The artist seeks the public to get involved with the work, where the most important thing is to interact. Thus, these works exist from collaboration and inclusion, basic ideas to generate creative energy.