Michelangelo Pistoletto

Born in 1933 in Biella (Italy)
Lives and works between Biella and Turin (Italy)

A leading figure in the development of Arte Povera and Conceptual art, Michelangelo Pistoletto is well known for his “mirror paintings” beginning in the 1960s, which first used grounds of metallic paint on canvas before rejecting canvas entirely for polished steel. In 2003 he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale. At the same Biennale he presented Love Difference - Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Politic, a project born in April 2002 at Cittadellarte, for which Pistoletto made a large reflecting table in the shape of the Mediterranean basin, around which many of the subsequent activities of Love Difference took place. In 2004 Turin University graduated him with a laurea honoris causa in Political Science. On that occasion the artist publicly announced the most recent phase of his work, Third Paradise, whose symbol is a reconfiguration of the mathematical sign for infinity conceived by the artist in 2003. From 2007, with the collaboration between Pistoletto and the musician Gianna Nannini, curated by Zerynthia - RAM Radioartemobile, the Third Paradise evolved into a multimedia work in progress. In 2007, in Jerusalem, Pistoletto was awarded the Wolf Foundation Prize in the Arts, “for his constantly inventive career as an artist, educator and activist whose restless intelligence has created prescient forms of art that contribute to fresh understanding of the world.” In 2010 he wrote the essay The Third Paradise, published in Italian, English, French and German. In 2011 he was the artistic director of Evento 2011 – L'art pour une ré-évolution urbaine in Bordeaux. In 2012 he started promoting the Rebirth-day, first worldwide day of rebirth, celebrated every year on 21st December with initiatives taking place all around the world. In that same year he is bestowed the title of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2013 the Louvre in Paris hosted his personal exhibition Michelangelo Pistoletto, année un – le paradis sur terre. In this same year he received the Praemium Imperiale for painting, in Tokyo. In 2014 the symbol of the Third Paradise was installed in the hall of the headquarters of the Council of the European Union in Brussels for the period of the Italian Presidency of the European Council.  In May 2015 he received a degree honoris causa from the Universidad de las Artes of Havana in Cuba for "his contribution to contemporary art and his influence on several generations of artists". In October of the same year he realizes a work, called Rebirth, in the park of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, headquarters of the UN, costituted of a huge symbol of the Third Paradise formed of 193 stones, one for each UN State Member.

Michelangelo Pistoletto states of his work for KB17: “The Third Paradise is the third stage of human society. The first is the ancestral stage dominated by nature, the second is the artificial stage dominated by art, science and technology. Today we are entering the third stage which will evolve in equilibrium between nature and artifice. Creating this equilibrium is the job we will do together, there is work for everyone."