Michelangelo Pistoletto: Interview of the Month, November 2024 – Paul Carey-Kent

Michelangelo Pistoletto in front of his solo exhibition at Robilant + Voena London, on view until 15 November 2024 - Photo @ Stephen Chung

At 91, Michelangelo Pistoletto has been making his signature Mirror Paintings for over sixty years. Yet he is still looking for new directions for them, and when I spoke to him in his new show at Robilant + Voena, he was so passionate in explaining his ideas it might have been for the first time. The exhibition, in collaboration with Galleria Continua, presents new examples from four different series of the Mirror Paintings: ‘Division and Multiplication of the Mirror’ (ongoing since 1973), ‘Black and Light’ (since 2007), Colour and Light’ (since 2014) and the ‘Vortex-Triptych’, first conceived for the Louvre in 2013. They all operate abstractly, though we also touched on those Mirror Paintings with photographic images on the surface, which remain the best-known.

What started you on the Mirror Paintings?

I started with the self-portrait, and you need a mirror to recognise yourself. Little by little, I arrived at my theory of trying to transform the material of the painting to something reflective, and I succeeded with a varnished black – to make a painting that acted as a mirror. So I presented my image on that black reflecting mirror. After that I moved on to polished stainless steel to get a better reflection. With this, it was necessary to have a much more objective image than just a painting, because the reflection was so objective, so automatic – so I was forced to use photography, which belonged to the same system of objectivity. And it was photography that created the crisis of art at the end of the nineteenth century – impressionism and cubism tried to see whether art could survive even when representations could be made by machine. In my mirror painting, photography came back into painting as a necessity.

Installation view at Robilant + Voena with works from the three Black and Light series
Installation view photo courtesy Robilant + Voena with works from the three Black and Light series

I see the portrait element remains in the abstracted head form in one isolated ‘Black and Light’ work. I believe Renaissance perspective was also a major influence on your thinking?

It started when I saw Piero della Francesca’s perspective because it is mathematic, scientific, not just representation – when he shows the flagellation of Christ, the people are an excuse to show the perspective – that is the true subject, and Christ is important because he is at the right point of the perspective. That flowed into science – Galileo came only after Piero. We arrived at photography through the evolution of science. But the photography and perspective is only about looking at what is in front, and the artist, the viewers, they are not inside. They are outside. When I made the mirror paintings the viewer came inside, and I opened up 100% of the space in front. Because all what I see in front of myself is behind myself. The impressionists and futurists, and Duchamp, wanted to include the viewer, but did not. The human being becomes the centre of the universe, and I can play with all my fantasy.

Installation view
Installation view photo courtesy Robilant + Voena 

The mirrors in your new show are all broken in some way. Why is that?

Going on, I arrived at the point of trying to give the mirror not only the capacity to reflect, but also to understand the material: I wanted to show not just the reflection, but the material that was producing the reflection. By breaking the mirror, the material that is reflective became part of the work, not just the reflection. It was a touchable space within an untouchable space. So each piece started to reflect the other, as in a society. It’s like a puzzle with a broken mirror – a person is a physical piece of mirror that is reflecting the other pieces of mirror. Society is related. The mirror is showing all the viewers, and they are a society. Like talking together.

Installation view with works from the ‘Colour and Light’ series
Installation view with works from the ‘Colour and Light’ series

The breaks are not just accidental?

That’s right. The fragments are not casual, they don’t just exist by chance – I manipulate the chance – I take the chance of using the chance! The first series I made of those you see here was a black mirror with light – ‘Black and Light’, you can’t say ‘black and white’ because the mirror is not white. Then I used canvas – and that brings in colour. There is also the possibility for the painting to exist where there is no mirror. In the first work of ‘Colour and Light’ you have a mirror that is all there, but all the pieces are broken. Then I took each piece in turn, disarticulating the puzzle. Each painting becomes like an individual of the society. Of course it is not easy to cut so well, I have very good people doing that! So the moment it is broken, you can remake it. You are not to be scared…

Are the frames important?

Very important, because in all the antique art, and in the moderns such as Picasso and Braque, there is always a frame because that gives the dimensions of the idea of the art. Without a frame, there is no limit. When I had an image on the mirror, there was no need for a frame, because the image itself gave the concept of representation to the mirror. The figure takes the place of the frame. Now I use canvas and frame as a way to recuperate the history of art. The mirror starts to be reconnected to the end of the 19th century. A photograph can never represent a mirror painting, because it changes all the time, it becomes just a memory of the moment. It is not representable – so my art puts photography in crisis!

Installation view with Dimension and Multiplication of the Mirror - ‘the door and the floor’, 2024
Installation view with Dimension and Multiplication of the Mirror – ‘The Door and The Floor’, 2024               

The Dimension and Multiplication of the Mirror series is, as the gallery explains, ‘underpinned by the notion that a mirror in an unaltered state reflects the totality of what exists. Dividing and changing the position of the resultant parts… creates a multiplication of the original mirror, a metaphor for organic growth and for social interaction among individuals. The example here, ‘the door and the floor’, suggests an entrance, but one you cannot go through?

My first mirror paintings were bringing the wall down. Now the wall has come back, it’s like closed door – but at the same time I open another door on the floor. The mirror becomes double.

Black and Light, 2024
Black and Light, 2024

And in Black and Light it’s as if you draw your way all across the mirrors?

Yes, I took a piece of paper, and it was fluid – shpp-shpp-shpp! Afterwards you want to isolate the drawings – each is beautiful on its own, and people have bought them separately – yet they join up.

Black and Light, 2024
Vortice-trittico (Vortex-triptyque), 2010-13

What about the Vortex-triptych. Could that be bigger?

Yes, that is different, it can go on and on, become an infinity.

What next?

I am preparing new ideas, I never stop. I like Picasso because he was never happy enough, so he went on. I am thinking about Artificial Intelligence. It is because we have the capacity to construct the perspective that we arrived at Artificial Intelligence, and I will work with the ‘technological mirror’.

Top Photo: Michelangelo Pistoletto in front of his solo exhibition at Robilant + Voena London, on view until 15 November 2024 – Photo @ Stephen Chung

Michelangelo Pistoletto continues at Robilant + Voena to 15 November. He also has a solo show at Gallery Continua in Paris, to 23 November

Read More

Visit

Tags

, ,