Pascal Gielen
Art as a Social Movement:
The Final Artwork of Michelangelo Pistoletto
In February 1994, the Italian artist
Michelangelo Pistoletto laid the foundations of his Progetto Arte or
³Art Project² in Munich. This was a remarkably open-ended title for a work.
What then could this title mean? Would it deal with the ultimate work of art,
or maybe with his very last one? Or, does Progetto Arte
suggest in a somewhat ironic manner that we are dealing with Pistoletto¹s first
real work of art? Upon closer consideration, it appeared that The Art Project
is not a material object. It is not an artistic artefact or an image. Rather,
it comprises a concept that originated in 1994; yet, still has not been
completed. It looks as if the project will not be brought to completion within
the artist¹s lifetime. For this reason, Pistoletto is doing everything he can
to guarantee the continuation of The Art Project after he is gone.
The Art
Project could be described as an ongoing conversation. From 1994 onwards,
Pistoletto has been organizing workshops, mainly at art academies all over the
world; Munich, Turin, Milan, Vienna, London, Tokyo and his present residence in
Biella have all been sites where discussions and videoconferences are held. The
subject of the discussion: ³the role of art and of the artist in the world of
today.² Pistoletto found the initial impetus to all these talks in some
rudimentary assessments with regard to the present condition of our society. In
his view, the 20th century witnessed an exponential acceleration of scientific
and technological developments. On the one hand, fast communication technology
brought the inhabitants of this earth closer to each other; on the other hand,
this situation has exacerbated conflicts between ethnic groups who are
desperately seeking their own stable identity. Within the global system, only
one logic is playing a dominant role, namely that of the neo-liberal economy
that no longer leaves space for a counter-position with regard to the rule of
profit-making.
Michelangelo
Pistoletto appears to be especially sensitive to such sociological phenomena.
That is why he founded in 1996 as a continuation of The Art Project a huge
organization and activist-artistic movement called Cittadellarte. Before I describe this
³final artwork² of Pistoletto, I offer an overview of his work.. I argue that
substantial parts of Pistoletto¹s oeuvre can be interpreted sociologically as the
preparation for a heterotopia in this late modern society. That is possible
because Pistoletto¹s work is social from the beginning and it comments on society in a
very sensitive way.
Anno Bianco or the art of
contingency
In
1988, Michelangelo Pistoletto announced that the next year would be the Anno
Bianco (The
White Year), an artistic project in which the dimension of time occupied a
central place. Pistoletto attempted to organise twelve exhibitions in galleries
all over the world, registering the most important events of that year. Just
like the mirror is reflecting the surroundings in which it is placed at random,
Anno Bianco was to reflect the year in which the project condensed. In other
words, Pistoletto allowed his work to depend on relatively contingent factors.
Besides, this is one of the central motifs underpinning his oeuvre. In his
work, a lot of space is allowed to the fortuitous or the Œaccident¹. Every fact
corresponds with an accident and an artistic oeuvre is both separated and
linked by fate.
By
embracing this concept, Pistoletto reveals himself to be the artist of
contingency. Everything that is, could just as well have been different:
nothing is necessary and nothing is impossible in the capriciousness of
history. With this vision, the artist penetrates into the very core of the
question of the place of art within contemporary society. It is a place that
can no longer be actualised by means of unequivocal, abstract positions. For
instance, for decades, the quintessential role that artistic artefacts and
concepts play within our society does no longer consist of an alleged imitation
of reality. This mirror function has been taken over by other mediums for quite
some time. Art¹s basic preoccupation also does not lie with its critical function.
The artist does not stand outside society, as so many creative individuals
would be quite happy to believe. Like all other subjects and objects, they
always are part of society. The putative outsider position is simply based on
an exotic misunderstanding. Yet artistic artefacts do confront commonsense
concepts with other conceptions of reality and with other conceptions from all
over the world. In other words, they open up a horizon of possibilities and
thus make visible the contingent character of the continuous reductions of
complexity through which the world is being observed and consequently reduced.
The artistic domain shows that contingency is a necessary prerequisite for a
viable, because perpetually Œpossibly different¹ world: the ultimate protection
against social claustrophobia or societal compulsive neurosis. By making
contingency into the central subject of his oeuvre, Pistoletto consciously
thematizes this effect of art.
³Order is not determined by an a priori will but is a
combination formed by accident or by a series of accidents. The fragment is
ordered material interrupted by accident; the generating or regeneration
element is therefore accident. The knowledge and the experience of ordered
forms is projected into the future through the accident of today. To place
difference of every kind (of style, conception, space, meaning) between my
various works is to mark as deeply as possible the condition of accident, hence
the vital present² (Pistoletto, 1988, p. 241).
Whether by coincidence or not, 1989,
the year which was chosen to be the Anno Bianco, would go down
into history as the year of the student revolts at the Tien An Men Square in
China and, probably to a much larger extent at least with regard to the
European situation of the fall of the Berlin wall. This crumbling of the
physical borderline between East and West confirmed a new phase in the process
of globalisation. The competition of the free-market place becomes the ultimate
organising principle within global social interaction. By choosing this very
year to be his Anno Bianco, Pistoletto becomes the registrar of this series of
events with their great impact. The introduction of the historical fault-line
in his work could be considered to be an important substrate for the Progetto
Arte: the reflection upon the position of art and of the
artist in this new world. Furthermore, the artist assessed that they were
slowly drifting away from their surrounding historical condition. The Kantian
paradigm of immanent artistic beauty that is marked by its a-historical
universality and disinterestedness still inspires a great many thinkers. Quite
to the contrary, Pistoletto conceives of art and of the artist within reality.
This implies that both relate to a historically-determined artistic, but also
to scientific, economic and political contexts. In his view, the artist ought
to play a role in all of these social spheres. He can no longer withdraw into
the cocoon of his own artistic universe, since society can no longer be
understood in terms of neatly defined territories. The existential conditions
of this universe are determined elsewhere and the artist has to interfere with
this, if he is to play a role in the future.
By
maintaining the position that the artist has to weave a web between all
pre-eminent threads that make up the contemporary Œfabric of society¹,
Pistoletto is defending a relatively a-modern idea. The artistic domain cannot
be conceived of as an independent, sovereign space, because art has been
decentralised. This means that, like all other social practices, from its very
inception, art is embedded within a complex network of relations of power and
of epistemological relations; this is the case even before artefacts are being
launched on the art market. Within this concept, both art and the artist are
hybrid beings which are at the same time artistic and political and economic,
andŠ Whereas the Modern Constitution liked to keep things separated within a
constellation that could be described as Œeither/or¹ - one was either political
or economic or scientific or artistic - Pistoletto tends towards an Œimpure¹
form which, at the same time, is of much greater complexity. At present, it is
this very body of ideas that nourishes the debate in the Progetto Arte: is
there any need today to rethink the model of the artist what is still based on
the premises of purity dating back from the Enlightenment?
Throughout her work, the French art
sociologist Nathalie Heinich outlines a type of genesis of the artistic model.
In her view, the conception of the artist as a timeless prophet is an archetype
which, towards the end of the nineteenth century, was based upon the Dutch
painter Vincent Van Gogh. In her work, he is the figure symbolising transition
in a period wherein the communal regime of academia collapses to be replaced by
the singular constitution of modernity. Furthermore, the developed discourse
with regard to Van Gogh points at a shift within several important artistic
values. For instance, the focus shifted from the oeuvre to the individual who
creates it; the normal is being traded in for the abnormal, just like
conformity to the academic norm is traded in for the cult of the strange. An
image of Œparticularity¹ is associated with the artist; it is based upon
concepts like Œexcess¹, Œpersonality¹, Œmarginality¹, et cetera. According to
Heinich, this emphasising of particularities happens by means of amongst
other procedures - linking the uniqueness of the work of art to biographical
and psychological information about the artist. This entails the
personification of the work of art: subject and object, art and artist conclude
an obscure pact what is definitely sealed and marked by a signature. In
closing, all of this is being solidified in the well-known notion of
authenticity. To the romantic artist, this leads to the expression of a
connection between the artwork and his innermost being. The artistic artefact
is the mirror of his unfathomable psyche: art as expression, as it were. Think
of the painting in which Van Gogh portrays himself with his ear cut off. On the
other hand, to the avant-garde artist, the successor of this romantic artist,
this labour of individualisation implies a transgression of the frameworks
defining art. However, these deviant findings have to be marked by the label of
the artist: transgression always needs to be ascribed to an individual. It is
his or her brand name. As such, for almost fifty years, Pistoletto has been
chained to this one distinctive Œdiscovery¹ of the mirror.
What does it mean
when an artist trades in the painted self-portrait for a mirror? To begin with,
it points to a lot more than to a simple politics of distinction within a
modern logic of art. An evident angle of incidence lies with the positioning of
the mirror with regard to the painting. For one thing appears to be rather
evident: the painting fixates. It fixates an image through which it freezes
time at first, after which it will inevitably be caught by time. The first
makes it possible for paintings to have a special documentary value regarding
events that took place both within and without the art world during the period
of their making. The second move entails the possibility to speak about Œdated¹
images. The painting can be situated in time and, for this reason, can be
labelled Œclassic¹ or Œdéclassé¹. The image, reflected by a mirror, is of a
totally different nature. It abandons fixation in favour of instability. The
image presented by the mirror only refers to the moment of its genesis in
minimal manner. First and foremost, it attempts to continuously catch up with
time. The reflected image comprises the instantaneousness wherein past and
present merge. It was for good reasons that the first mirror that Pistoletto
exhibited in Turin in 1962 was titled Il Presente or The Present.
The self-portrait
as Œpars pro toto¹ of a form of painting not only freezes time, but also
incarnates the way of realizing this fixation by means of the personality of
the artist. The artist who fixates himself emphasises his own uniqueness and
singularity. It is no coincidence that the self-portrait has gained
considerable importance during the Renaissance, the cradle of bourgeois
individualism. The linkage of the artist to his artwork is visually sealed in
this type of artistic artefacts. The singular authorship is triumphant, as it
were, in the self-portrait. The artist places himself in an auratic perspective
at the centre of the world. He construes his ego as a historical figure at the
junction of different events. The mirror does not only change the dimension of
time, it also radically breaks with this ego-staging. The artist who observes
himself in the mirror, does not only see himself anymore, but also his
surroundings. Furthermore, any spectator can take his place. By means of the
mirror, Michelangelo Pistoletto allows heterogeneity to irrupt and he can no
longer leave it unaccounted for afterwards.
³There arises a
relationship of triplication of the subject: I the viewer, I on the surface, I
in the reflection; and there arises a weaving together of relations among all
the other elements² (Pistoletto,
1988, p. 246).
The artist conceives of himself as a
heterogeneous being with regard to all other things and therefore also to his
own relativity. When he steps out of the reflecting surface of the mirror, his
own image disappears. Its space is cleared for the reflection of other objects
and people. The artist in the mirror is but a passer-by like numerous others.
The politics of the ego, symbolised by the self-portrait, is being handed over
in favour of a politics of an alter-ego relationship. By doing this, the artist
also intensely relativises time and space. Pistoletto often emphasises this
idea by introducing people in the mirror. While the people who have been
fixated on the mirror freeze in time, many other egos pass them by. In other
words, it is in the mirror that Michelangelo discovers in 1961 a particular
capacity, namely the one of heterotopia. It was only twenty years later that
the French philosopher Michel Foucault would make a comparable association:
³The
mirror is a utopia after all, since it is a placeless place. In the mirror I
see myself where I am not, in an unreal space that opens up virtually behind
the surface; I am over there where I am not, a kind of shadow that gives me my
own visibility, that enables me to look at myself there where I am absent a
mirror utopia. But it is also a heterotopia in that the mirror really exists,
in that it has a sort of return effect on the place that I occupy. Due to the mirror,
I discover myself absent at the place where I am, since I see myself over
there. From that gaze which settles on me, as it were, I come back to myself
and I begin once more to direct my eyes toward myself and to reconstitute
myself there where I am. The mirror functions as a heterotopia in the sense
that it makes this place which I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in
the glass both utterly real, connected with the entire space surrounding it,
and utterly unreal since, to be perceived, it is obliged to go by way of that
virtual point which is over there² (Foucault, 1994, (1984), p. 179).
The Minus Artist
Pistoletto calls himself a Minus Artist: the artist who devises a modest
move within an immense configuration network of many moves, of what he himself
is a constituent part. Each work becomes a new point in this interplay which is
no longer completely subordinated to the artist. The Œauthor¹ moves to the side-line as soon as the artistic
intervention is completed in order to have it Œfiled in¹ by other things:
contemporary surroundings in case of the mirror, for instance, or a contingent
succession of historical events in Anno Bianco. Pistoletto thus construes
Œperpetuum mobiles¹ or motionless movers. After having been constructed by the
artist, the artefacts start to operate autonomously as a cause
in-and-of-itself, Œsui generis¹. The mirror continues to endlessly reflect in
front of it, independent from the artist. One could state that Pistoletto
constructs Œopen¹ works of art that are based on an awareness of otherness. At
times they let the latter slide in, or at least invite it to do so. The Minus
Artist does however retain his singular character, but always relates it to a
much larger world and history. The artist in the mirror no longer is a person
who falls back upon himself; instead he opts for a directed self-relativisation
of his individual position. At the same time, it implies a calling into
question of the role he plays within the present constellation of the world.
Pistoletto puts the humanist inheritance of the belief in the autonomy of the
artist between brackets. The artistic act of complete self-determination is
approached with due scepticism. However, self-relativisation does not imply a
minimisation of the role of the artist. It simply quite literally means: Œto
relate itself to¹. Acts, whether or not of an artistic nature, always take
shape in an interdependent chain of actions and reactions between people and
things. The world does not revolve around the artist. He is but a tiny particle
within a gigantic quantum conglomerate.
Minus Objects / Quasi Objects
In the midst of the sixties, the above-mentioned idea is further
buttressed by Pistoletto¹s Oggetti in Meno or the Minus Objects. The reflection
in the mirror is left behind in favour of the practice of placing the most
divergent objects in a given space. The only thing that keeps these objects
together are the differences between them. Compared to the mirror, these
objects bestow a more active role upon the spectator as the latter needs to
move in between these artefacts. This performative statute bestows the role of
quasi-objects upon the Oggetti in Meno, as they were described by the French
philosopher of science Bruno Latour: hybrid beings in the border-zone between
an ideal and a material world. Latour problematises the dichotomies between the
idea and the material, mind and body, subject and object, culture and nature,
et ceteraŠ They originated in classic antiquity and have subsequently been
reinforced all over the West throughout the following centuries by
Christianity. The oppositions have ultimately been validated as basic
differentiations by several scientific disciplines.
In his oeuvre, Pistoletto regularly plays with this
deep-rooted dichotomy. For instance, in Anno Uno, a piece of theatre performed
in 1981, he places people by means of columns under a wooden construction. In
this work, subjects became objects, or rather quasi-objects: if they were to
break down, the fragile architectural construction would collapse. Within the
frame of reference of Bruno Latour, one could locate the Oggetti in Meno and
the quasi-objects of Anno Uno in between and underneath the crystallised poles
of people and things. They are located on the very spot where splitting up
becomes unthinkable because, as Latour argues, dualism and dialectics are
endlessly revolving around it without focusing on it. For instance, as artistic
artefacts, the Minus Objects are much more Œsocial¹, much more construed and
much more communal than natural objects. Yet, one can by no means reduce them
to simple machines for the projection of meaning. They are much more real,
a-human and objective than mere symbolical representations.
³... with regard to the ŒMinus
Objects¹ and to Pistoletto¹s oeuvre as a whole, one should not speak of
symbols. These things don¹t Œrepresent¹, they simply Œare¹. They do not carry
concepts, they are the arrival point, the terminus.² (Serafini, 2001, p. 30).
The Oggetti in Meno constitute a
terminus, indeed. For this reason, Pistoletto does not refer to them as
constructions, but much rather as Œliberations¹. They were constituent parts of
a whole from which they have been subtracted, hence the minus. The artefacts do
not signify a surplus, but rather a Œless-than-the-whole¹. This Œnegative¹
definition might, at first sight, appear to be quite opaque, maybe even
mystical. Yet, Pistoletto¹s discourse relies on a well-known paradigm, namely
that of semantics. This scientific discipline departs from the idea that words
only get meaning in relation to other words. The context is decisive for the
frame of interpretation of the concept in question. Consequently, meanings are
interwoven in a network of words. A comparable thing is at stake with the Minus
Objects. In Pistoletto¹s view, they get new meaning as the combinations between
them change. Yet artefacts do have some defining power, albeit merely as a
result of their materiality. Quite simply, they oblige the spectator to walk
around them, for instance. In this sense, they represent a relative ontology
and not an absolute relativism, as some semioticians and other post-modern
characters would like to make us believe. However, the artefacts barely have
any immanent value. I did indeed write Œbarely¹; as a result of their use
throughout history, the Oggetti in Meno do fixate certain meanings in the same
manner as some signifiers solidify as a result of their being used repetitively
within the same semantics. An identity is fixated in the refrain, in
repetition.
In the Minus Objects, the refrain is
contained in a programmatic manner in the plural of their name. The Oggetti in
Meno can be exhibited as singular objects, but with their collective label
their interpretation cannot elude a connection with other artefacts. Once
again, their very name points out to us that we are dealing with heterogeneous
entities whose identities and the roles that they play are in part determined
by the relations between them. The relational is the very instrument to
acknowledge them. Each artefact exists in a juxtaposition with other objects,
enhanced throughout time, and it is linked to the latter as a result of the
title in the plural form. Consequently, every modality of presenting implies a
simplification of the work, for it is but one choice out of many possibilities.
In theory, an indefinite number of combinations are possible; in practice,
however, the patterns of interdependency are limited to a certain number of
configurations. Within a given presentation, the possible contributions of the
Minus Objects to the whole are temporarily located within a relatively marked
definition. Consequently, both the architecture the material and the
discursive space and the exhibition curator carry a special responsibility,
for both contribute to the way how the Minus Objects will Œenroll¹ the
spectator. This refers to the way in which the spectator will be defined by the
presentation and to the role which will be allotted to him or to her by means
of this presentation. Subsequently, the contextualisation of the Oggetti in
Meno decides upon the possible scenarios according to which the spectator can
Œenroll¹ himself, for he or she still has the personal choice between several
parcours within the (pre-)organised space.
Whereas the above is
implicitly valid for all presentations of art, Pistoletto thematises this
complexity in his Minus Objects. The title in the plural form shifts the focus
from the singular object to the relations between them and consequently also to
the problem of displaying them. Furthermore, the artefacts represent a whole
minus one and time and again, they need to be redefined to arrive at this
whole. The Oggetti in Meno are conceived in such manner that they refer to the
contribution of several actors as well as to their shared responsibilities. In
their quality of quasi-subjects, they call upon an extended social
configuration. Once again, the impact of the artist is put in between brackets
or is at least related to and hence made dependent upon the contribution of
other people, institutions and objects. They become co-authors or co-producers
in a heterogeneous game within one unique presentation. By doing so,
Pistoletto¹s shift of accent from the singular object to interrelations and
mediation emphasises the event-character of every exhibition. The focus on the
intentional artistic act shifts to the perceived event. The total of actors can
only try to create the conditions for an in optimal experience. Every
exhibition brings together objects, subjects and social configurations in a
different relational context, thus also in a new frame of meaning. For, each
and every time, they are turned into a conjectural event in co-production with
objects, subjects and configurations that may or may not be of relevance. In
other words, the Oggetti in Meno are not dealing with the order of things, but
with the process of ordering. In this manner, Pistoletto does not only impact
upon our perception of art, but also upon the way in which the art system
functions. The Minus Objects can be read as a modest institutional comment:
only up to a certain degree is the meaning of artistic artefacts depending upon
the intention of the artist since a polyphony of connotations is woven by a
heterogeneous company of subjects and objects. It is this collective
configuration what generates artistic meaning by its interwoven-ness.
What
is uncovered in the process, is one of the few things that can be stated with
regard to the work of art with relative certainty. During its entire history,
the artwork has attempted to connect itself. For instance, music Œbegs¹ to be
listened to; paintings, sculptures, dance performances,Š beg to be seen and/or
heard. Without these interested eyes and ears, the artefact does not have any
artistic meaning. With the rise of modernity, this urge to connect has only
been intensified. In pre-modern times, only nobility and the clergy decided
upon the Œartistic¹. This all-controlling royal or religious gaze on the
artefact has been sidelined by modernity. As a result thereof, however, the
point of reference of the artwork became less unequivocal. With whom or what
ought it associate, as of yet? For, in the modern world, the work of art is the
object of economic, political, artistic,Š configurations. Despite the struggle
of a great many, it refuses to be reduced to one of these categories. Whenever
the artistic artefact shows itself in public - for example in a museum - it is
subject to the gaze of politicians, businessmen, sponsors, art critics,
programme-makers, curators, et cetera. Consequently, it is at this very locus
that the artefact engages in the most heterogeneous of connections. Like a tiny
Œmachiavellist¹, it is searching for Œfans¹, coalition partners or allies. In
the process, it is oblivious to those who might be in the exhibition hall or in
the museum, for, as everybody knows, artefacts cannot see. Artworks not to be
confounded with artists can unconditionally and without any preference
associate with everything and with everybody. After all, it is up to the
spectator for the work of art still is Œin the eyes of the beholder¹ to
decide whether its desire to construct a network is reciprocated or not. Quite
paradoxically, in this urge to connect, the artwork does not counter the
modernist claim to autonomy. In fact, it is dependent upon an amalgamation of
spectators and mediators. The Oggetti in Meno make this abundantly clear.
Michelangelo Pistoletto further extends and expands the heterotopical artistic
reality of the mirror by emphasising the relational instead of the immanent,
differentiality instead of univocality, heterogeneity instead of homogeneity,
ambivalence instead of unequivocality. Pre-existent frames of reference and
categories of observation are increasingly shaken and shuffled.
In his book ŒThe badlands of modernity¹, the English sociologist Kenneth
Hetherington probes the nature of the social order within modernity. For this
purpose, he searches for spaces that, during the eighteenth century, gave
meaning to marginality, transgression and resistance. Michel Foucault¹s concept
of heterotopia occupies a special place in this research. In Foucault¹s work,
this originally medical concept is translated into sociological terms as the
organisation of a social space that is somewhat different from everyday
surroundings. Heterotopia displays itself in between eu-topia: the place of
good, and ou-topia: the non-place. Already in the sixteenth century, Thomas
Moore intertwined both Greek notions in the neologism utopia: a good place that
does not exist anywhere, only in our imagination. Utopia shows us the way to a
better place, yet only exists as a socially constructed desire. It is the
horizon, a point of possibilities beyond reach which creates a glimpse from the
other side of both the world and of heaven. However, as we progress, this
horizon continues to move forward as an unreachable border. To be sure, such a
collective fiction does generate reality effects. It organises real spaces by
means of ideas and of practices that, in some way or other, represent Œgood
life¹ or at least the desire therefore. Heterotopia expresses a concrete
translation of this sort. Whereas utopia is an imaginary construction of a
well-defined social order, heterotopia constitutes the uncertain local play of
social ordering in reality. Utopia somewhere is up in the air over there and
one can feel, see and smell it in everything that happens there. Heterotopia
does so by offering a place to hybrids and to paradoxes. Contradictions are
only experienced as such because the larger surrounding space is organised
according to different principles of ordering. Consequently, heterotopia only
exists in relation to other social forms of organisation.
According to Hetherington, at a certain moment in
history, the Palais Royal - what was built for cardinal Richelieu in the
vicinity of the Louvre in Paris - was a good example of such a place of
paradoxes. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, its then owner, the
aristocrat Louis-Philippe, Duc d¹Orléans (a cousin of the King of France)
transformed the complex from a monolithic function as a place of residence into
a multifunctional space with several shops. Rather quickly, the Palais Royal
developed into a polyphonic complex with theatres, an opera, cafés,
restaurants, commercial undertakings, coffee houses, etc. Festivals and circus
entertainment generated a carnivalesque atmosphere. They were the vehicles
which brought about social inversion between the highest and the lowest strata
of the population. Quite paradoxically, all symptoms of modern consumer culture
found a place within the property of one of the leading members of aristocracy
at that time. Incidentally, it was in a coffee house at this complex that, on
July 12th 1789, Camille Desmouling jumped on a table and gave his
famous speech, after which the Bastille was stormed, sparking the French
Revolution. In other words, the Palais Royal was a stage for a curious mix of
the orthodox and the heterodox. Whilst being a heritage of the Ancien Régime,
it was at the same time a place for a new era. These are more or less the
features of a heterotopical place. The boundary between centre and periphery
cannot be drawn by evidence. Every social order always implied deviant forms
that converge at those places populated by irreconcilable things, people and
ideas. Cultural practices that are experienced as paradoxes, merge in an
unexpected bricolage. In other words: disorder always is already present within
order.
This very principle introduces Michelangelo Pistoletto
with his Art Project:
³Progetto Arte is the
visible sign of a possible principle that of the joining of opposites which
can be applied to all social contexts, in terms both ideal and practical²
(Pistoletto, 1994).
The debate that was started with the
Art Project in 1994, was continued in a physical translation in 1996 in the
form of Cittadellarte. This contraction of the Italian words for citadel and
for city refers to the presence of two categories which are difficult to
reconcile. For the former stands for a secluded, protected area, whereas the
latter is a metaphor of dynamism, expansion and a complex of mutually interdependent
elements that fan out into the world. By means of these internal paradoxes, the
word refers to one of the basic paradoxes of heterotopia, as it had been
described by Michel Foucault. It presupposes a mechanism of opening and
closing: at the same time, it closes off the place and makes it accessible. The
most adequate metaphor to understand a comparable heterotopic place may be the
one of the sailing ship, according to Foucault.
³...the
ship is a piece of floating space, a placeless place, that lives by its own
devices, that is self-enclosed and, at the same time, delivered over to the
boundless expanse of the ocean, and that goes from port to port, from watch to
watch, from brothel to brothel, all the way to the colonies in search of the
most precious treasures that lie waiting in their gardens, you see why for our
civilization, from the sixteenth century up to our time, the ship has been at
the same time not only the greatest instrument of economic development, of
course, but the greatest reservoir of imagination. The sailing vessel is the
heterotopia par excellence. In civilizations without ships the dreams dry up,
espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police that of the corsairs²
(Foucault, 1994 (1984), p. 184-185).
Cittadellarte materialised in a previous textile factory with an
adjoining previous mill along the river Cervo in the city of Biella. During
both the Middle Ages and under the rule of the house of Piemonte-Savoie it was
one of the centres that contributed to making the North of Italy into a
prosperous textile region. In a short period of time the Fondazione Pistoletto
founded a genuine organisation. The time-honoured practice of weaving is one of
the many metaphors that abounds to somehow verbalise the organisation of this
centre. For, within the walls of this factory, a network is being woven in
which the artistic element functions as a link connecting the most divergent
practices. The organisation is conceived in a manner that all possible art forms
such as music, theatre, literature, dance, photography, architecture and the
visual arts can be connected with other types of societal systems. Cittadellarte reveals itself to be a mediator between art and economy, politics,
science, education, et cetera. By doing so, Pistoletto, opens up a social space
for his previously described a-modern Œand/and¹-discourse. His artistic
trajectory has been translated into the social sphere in a very ambitious
manner. The Œclassic modern¹ singular position of the artist is transformed
into that of someone who places himself in a position of a collective
collaboration, not only with other artists, but also with scientists,
businessmen, politicians and a very diverse group of social actors. In a way,
one could say that Pistoletto started to combine his original relationship to
his artefacts with a social setting marked by quite very intensive interactions
and negotiations with a lot of people in order to work out a huge Œwork of
art¹. By doing so, he transformed his own artistic position and career into an
inventive communal model. With Cittadellarte,
Pistoletto initiated an open space in which other actors can come to work at an
artistic process. This implies that this project can be translated and
transmuted by others. Some of them pass by and leave after some months, whereas
others stay at the place to work for many years. Some people leave to come back
after months or a year. By operating in this way, Cittadellarte became a central focal point in an expanding network and the identity
of this passage is the outcome of many interactions and collaborations.
Consequently, one could not state anymore that there is only one Œauteur¹ for
this artistic project. In other words, Pistoletto made his concept of the Minus
Artist very concrete. The man literally became an actor who devises a modest
move within an immense configuration network of many moves, of which Pistoletto
himself, of course, is a constituent part. All the artists and other social
actors in Cittadellarte retain their singular
character, but always relate it to a much larger world.
ŒUffizi¹ as organizing principle
By means of slogans like ŒEliminate distances while maintaining
differences¹; ŒArt at the centre of a social responsible transformation¹; ŒThe artist
as sponsor of thought¹ and the like, Pistoletto is adapting a heterogeneous
cluster of the most divergent forms of social praxis. These direct one-liners
work as a factor of attraction to many people in different social spheres. The
discursive regime is building up a horizon to which other actors can relate
themselves: this means they can get involved with or distance themselves from
it. The heterogeneity is also illustrated by the activities within and around
the ŒUffizi¹, as they are called within the Cittadellarte. The term ŒUffizi¹ refers to the Renaissance concept wherein economy,
education, politics, philosophy, religion, art and science, but also both
private and public life interacted in a pre-modern hybrid manner. In one of
these offices the work currently carried out consists in building the
architecture of an alternative economic system, an Œeconomical organicity¹,
which attempts to implement social, ecological, ethical and aesthetic values
within contemporary economy. In the ŒEconomics Office¹, artists and scientists
set up a research to find a possible answer or answers to the dominant
neo-liberal system. By attempting to bring art in the centre of the economic
field and by describing the artist as an actor who has to take his responsibility
in this system, Cittadellarte wants to break
open the contemporary dominant capitalist system. They do this not by working
against the system, but by creating an open space for artistic contingency
inside it. This not only happens on a macro-level by trying to develop a so
called Œgrand theory¹, but also by working on a micro-level in particular
companies. The ŒEconomics Office¹, for example, functions as an intermediary
between artists and companies in order to stimulate an influence of art on
those factories. In that way, artists can become a kind of Œfree space¹ in
companies to develop projects with workers and other employees. By giving this
room to Œthe unknown¹ called art, companies demonstrate at least an opening to
the other which can be the starting point for further transformations. Cittadellarte is now at a phase of creating as many rooms for art in the economic
system as possible, in the hope that the latter will change step by step. By
combining the research for a new Œgrand theory¹ with very practical empirical
artistic research, we can describe the organisation in Biella as working on a
middle-range level that tries to find the right concepts for a concrete praxis
on the one hand, and uses the experiences from these concrete artistic acts to
develop a different vision on how economy can function on the other hand.
In the context of another project that originated in
the ŒPolitics Office¹, Cittadellarte
works on an artistic movement for Inter-Mediterranean politics, called ŒLove
Difference¹. This is an attempt to find an answer to globalisation and the new
world order. The project that was presented at ŒUtopia Station¹ at the Venice
Biennial in 2003 can be seen as the start of a participatory artistic movement
that is open to anyone interested in the artistic encounter between different
societal systems that are a reflection of world-wide tensions. The ŒPolitics
Office¹ of Cittadellarte conceives of the
Inter-Mediterranean area as a symbolic place where the major problems and
conflicts of the world come together. The countries around the Mediterranean
sea, for example, are the locus of oppositions between rich and poor, between
different religions and confronting cultural habits. The political movement of Cittadellarte wants to stimulate the interaction between all those extreme
differences and, therefore again, conceives art to be an important
communication modality.
The Quest as an Artistic Methodology
All of these projects are based on the very big
ambition to make a real difference departing from art. In order to do this,
they combine a utopian desire with a high level of pragmatism and
entrepreneurial orientation. The
aims, often expressed in the above-mentioned slogans, point out the direction and
energise the artistic process of transformation. The activities are intended to
make real progress in the desired direction. In order to make this difference
on the ground, all possible roads are being followed and continuously
reconfigured and all possible resources are being invested and reinvested. Full time staff members, experts,
trainees, young residents, civil servants, members of the family and ever more
former residents compose a very hybrid group that gets involved in the
ambitious plan.
By means of slogans and manifests, Michelangelo Pistoletto
attempts to generate a space for alternative societal praxes. However, the
discourse that buttresses it is quite robust and unfinished. To be clear, at
this moment, Cittadellarte does not so much
articulate a constituent part of any well-delineated scientific framework, nor
a sophisticated, let alone verified theory. This probably is a characteristic
of an artistic approach; for art wants to go fast and often impacts upon
situations before they have become facts. Quite to the contrary, any form of scientific
progress depends on specific methodologies they become a consistent conceptual
whole. For this reason, scientists work at a considerably lower speed than the
artist, since the latter is not bound to something like the Œonus probandi¹ or
burden of proof. This does not mean that the artist would not make use of any
form of methodology, but he or she develops his or her own one. Speaking with
artists in Cittadellarte, one can discover that
this artistic Œmethodology¹ is often considered by them to be a question of
ethics. Can I really interfere in an economic system, can I really participate
in a political movement? And, what then is my position as an artist, how can I
define or re-define my praxis? These are reflexive questions you often come
across in Biella. But one thing seems to be certain: in spite of his or her
doubts, an artist can react to historical events and to the world surrounding
him or her in a much more tentative manner than the scientist. According to the
American sociologist John Manfredi, it is the very independence from
standardised methodologies that enables the artist to quickly and in a
sensitive manner point to places where the angels of science dare not thread.
Compared to the scientist, the artist therefore always is in the avant-garde. Cittadellarte does not constitute a model for well-founded scientific research on a
possible social model. But it does offer space for a quest. Like in mediaeval
ballads, this word does not refer to a search for something that has already
been adequately defined. For the quest is a type of research that produces its
own object, like the Knights of the Round Table fabricated their Holy Grail.
Furthermore, it is a search that never ends.
³A
quest unlike a search, never ends; it alternates between striving for
resolution and immediate relaunching, between the certainty required for action
and the demolition of certainty that results from reflection, between the very
human dreams of sitting still and moving forward² (Czarniawska, 1997, p. 160).
Characteristic of such a quest is the fact that it entails quite a lot
of trial and error. In other words, sitting still and moving at the same time
does imply a considerable loss. The great number of oppositions and paradoxes
regularly lead to blockages and tensions, which have to be resolved and for
which time and again solutions have to be found. Consequently, loss is a part
of the productive quest: no experiment, no laboratory, no invention without
loss. Time and again, there is a need to search for other ways in an empirical
manner. By means of his slogans and his manifests, Pistoletto constantly
produces borderline ideas or markedly ambivalent categories that are used as
vehicles for this purpose. This ambitious performance of hybrid ideas is
provocative to the curious spectator, company executives, scientists,
politicians and young artists, because Pistoletto refers to a different order
than the one to which we are used to at the present time. The ŒManifesto
dell¹Arte e dell¹Impresa¹ (ŒManifesto of Art and Enterprise¹) of 2002 can be
seen as one example of this hybrid discourse:
³Italy
possesses the essential elements required to move towards new and significant
horizons, recombining ideals and activity in the present, a period in which the
need for a new Renaissance is clearly evident. The Italian productive and
artistic spirit has in its DNA the characteristics of multiformity,
multiplicity and difference, previous values of the past that project towards
the future. They are resources that must be preserved and protected in every
possible way, like the major historic monuments, of which Italy has the
greatest number. At the same time, ancient ambitions must be reconverted into
the shared commitment to produce a new history. The artistic-entrepreneurial figure
established with this project embodies a Œmoral¹ factor which comes into the
economic calculation of the entrepreneur, whose objective is enriched to become
a full-fledged mission. The manifesto can basically be summarised by this
slogan: Italian enterprise is a cultural mission² (Pistoletto, 2002).
The ethics of modern art
To the sedentary modernist, this curious mixture of art, politics and
economics will appear to be extremely suspect. From modern times onwards,
social reality was conceptualised as a differentiated space. Art occupies an
autonomous place within this space what is to be cut off from other social
realities in order to remain unpolluted. However, the ordering of the world,
according to this morality of purity, leads to a particularly ambivalent
methodology of repression. As early as 1977, the French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu already pointed out in great detail that artistic activity is draining
economical transactions to the darkroom of the socially unconscious; yet, the
same goes for political practices or private matters. The Œgood¹, or rather,
Œthe genuinely incorruptible¹ artist is solely devoted to his artistic
endeavour. The rest is of secondary importance, according to the artistic
ethics of modernism. Quite paradoxically, a comparable rhetoric of independence
leads to a great measure of dependence. For instance, the artist who does not
deal with economics or politics will not develop alternative systems of
distribution and is also not concerned with the powers that deal with him or
her.
Not
only the artist, but also artistic institutions stage this autonomy. For
example, if one is to enter a museum of contemporary art, on one side of the
entrance one will notice the names of politicians who contributed to the
realisation of the building or the collection, whereas on the other side, he
will see the names of sponsors who somehow contribute to its functioning by
means of financial support. When the spectator subsequently enters the museum
halls, he leaves these representatives of power and economy behind him in order
to let himself be surrounded by nothing but pure Art. He imagines himself to
dwell in an autonomous and spotless space. The generally white walls emphasise
this virgin nature. This is the very staging that Michelangelo Pistoletto calls
into question. According to him, this (western) way of ordering is overripe.
The internal contradictions it breads whilst continuously trying to obfuscate
them are proliferating and need to be brought to the fore. This, amongst other
things, is the aim of ŒArt at the
centre - of a responsible social transformation¹, a sequence of exhibitions
which takes place every year at Cittadellarte. Young curators
are invited to develop models of exhibiting which target the borderline and the
possible relations between art and politics, economy, science, etc. In this
regard, it becomes a matter of fact that representatives of economy and
politics are involved in the exhibition. Maecenatism, sponsors or instances
that grant subventions are not acquitted by merely cashing in on their generous
financial support. A more thorough form of engagement is expected from them
what, at the very least, implies a relation to the artistic. For example, the
ŒNew Agora¹, the title of an exhibition in 2002, did face up to the
interdependent relations with corporate business structure and with the
political arena. The exhibition of 2003 ŒPublic Art in Italy¹ investigates the
complexity of public art, again rendering visible the broader network around a
work of art. According to Cittadellarte, this integrated
approach offers the sole possibility to arrive at a sound analysis.
Subsequently, one could attempt to redefine the relation between the artist and
his surroundings. Perhaps, this line of thought is not all that odd. More than
in the recent past, the world of visual art of today is hemmed in by political
and, most of all, economic types of logic. Trying to suppress this reality does
not appear to be the most efficient strategy. Only upon acknowledging different
relations of dependency, one can start to work on new models for artists, for
organisations, presentations and distribution systems for art.
UNIDEE
Another important factor in Cittadellarte is ³The University of Ideas,²
(UNIDEE) founded in a workshop in 1999. Under the banner of UNIDEE, people from
all over the world are offered a place of residence in Biella. The organisers
of the programme who accompany them have a function what is quite specific for
the organisation. They not only support the residents, but also search for
translations between the quest of the organisation and their personal research
on a permanent basis. They try to connect the individual path of the singular
resident with the possibilities of the organisation. They also play the role of
translation centres between the individual Œpassengers¹ and the Uffizi. And, in
their turn, the Œoffices¹ engage in translations with the world outside Cittadellarte. In a subsequent stage, the
offices organise and accompany the residents in their negotiations with
companies, politicians, economists, scientists, or whatever the social actors
are with whom the residents want to work. In this way, Cittadellarte is conceptualised as one big
translation centre between the world of art and all the other societal
subsystems.
Also
the selection of the residents proves that Cittadellarte takes
far-reaching consequences for the way in which choices are being made. The
selection of residents does not aim at warranting secure results. It searches
possibilities. Openness and aspiration are the main criteria, rather than any
professional certainty. The residents may take part in the project of Cittadellarte and eventually
transform or widen it by their own orientation. It is also specific for UNIDEE
that they have just one very big atelier, called the laboratory, where all the
residents have to define their own place. Just like the ŒMinus Artist¹, they
have to re-define their own individual position, and, in the first instance,
inscribe it within the small network of the other residents. Consequently, the
very spatial setting calls into question the classic articulation of the
singular artist and egocentric individuality. In the group of 2003, there were,
amongst others, a Danish economist and philosopher, an English architect and
composer and an Indian designer. Some of the selected residents already have a
quite successful experience, while others are very young people who are just
starting to develop their own ideas and concepts. All of them are being
confronted with the strange mix that is proper to the place: the quest with a
dedication to high goals combined with a pragmatic challenge to make real
progress on the spot. The residents can work on their own projects, but are
also involved in project-based activities supported by scientists,
entrepreneurs and other artists.
The
guests are strongly encouraged to organise artistic projects within a
non-artistic environment. Socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods, business
companies, educational systems, urban developments and virtual spaces on the
web are sites that have been explored as of yet. It is of great importance that
the residents work in a position requiring direct negotiations in which they,
time and again, have to fend for their own space. UNIDEE offers a context that
also proposes twilight zones to the Œpassengers¹ that may be considered to be
particularly risky, such as, for example, to work in a private company.
Unavoidably, with regard to this, the quest generates considerable losses what
are a quintessential part of a laboratory context of trial and error. As for
the projects of Cittadellarte themselves, the volatile combination of
openness, aspiration and outside parties (politicians, entrepreneurs, factory
workers,Š) does not guarantee a perfectly finalised output. Both the choice of
the settings and the choice of the residents are adventurous and may lead to a
result that is not really satisfying, not for Cittadellarte, nor for the
residents themselves.
Because artists sometimes work in risky twilight zones
they can fall short in their aims. Especially dealing with companies can result
in a quick adaptation of the artistic project in the main strategy of the
enterprise. In some cases, art is used for nothing but sheer image building.
For instance, their products are given a new design by as the companies see
it - some Œeccentric creative character¹. In that case, the project is enrolled
as an aestheticizing patch-up; quite a clever marketing strategy for the
enterprise. This is very much the risk of working in an a-modern area.
In other cases, the interventions have a much more
thorough impact. For example, residents could analyse the corporate structure
or the production process and subsequently plan an artistic move in the
process. They attempt to get a grip on fossilised phenomena like routine, fixed
time schedules, standardised production, management, world economy and
translate these in to an experiment which stimulates a creative process inside
these environments. Those projects shape the possibility for reflection, which
can at a certain moment be reinvested in the social system as a place of
practical transformations.
The residents at UNIDEE are encouraged to take up the
position of negotiators in non-artistic places in order to search for possible
intermediary forms. This position is challenging the young resident to take
upon her- or himself the full ambition and pragmatism of Cittadellarte. For he or she is to impose his or her artistic will within a context
that is not made for it and which, quite often, can hardly deal with it. At
times, this requires an especially sophisticated form of ingenuity because they
need to appropriate the place of a strategically conceptualised unit of
production in an intelligent manner by means of all sorts of tactics.
Consequently, the project can turn into a very tiresome process of negotiating,
devising detours, making compromises, undoing compromises, etc. Therefore,
certainly in the beginning, some of the residents have many doubts. The clear
position of Cittadellarte in its willingness to
work together with the most heterogeneous categories of societal subsystems
provokes a lot of discussions and opposition. They constitute a huge debate
within the organisation. In the beginning, a lot of residents have the feeling
that, for example, they Œhave to sell out their artistic soul to a company or
an other non-artistic environment¹. In discussions they warn their
colleagues-residents for the suspect compromises they may engage in, for the
incredibility of the intentions of the corporate world or for the presumed
naiveté of Cittadellarte¹s utopia. The role of
those debates is just as quintessential, since they fuel opponent positions in
which, at a certain moment, reflective energy arises. Michelangelo Pistoletto
sees this as one of the most constructive conditions, as he explains in his own
metaphor:
³This
space is free, open and responsive, like an open, free and responsive mind.
Free, as the mind needs to be free in order to understand what happens in this
place. It is a massive generator, a generator of energy. In nature, energy
manifests itself in the meeting/clash between two poles. In the meeting/clash
between the positive and the negative pole. We all know about the experience of
destructive lightning. But now we can experience productive, civilised
lightning, namely electricity: a perfect contact between opposite polarities²
(Pistoletto, 2001).
Beyond the Artworld
For, just like the mirror, Cittadellarte
also lets alterity irrupt. The place offers a space for contradictions and for
contradictory visions. This regularly leads to particularly heated discussions
with fellow-residents and last, but most certainly not least, with Pistoletto
himself. For we cannot forget that the artist of the mirror is also tributary
to the context of modern art. He carries the burden of this heritage
unconditionally along with his desire to surpass it. As such, the mirror and
the Minus Objects represent the orthodoxy of the configuration of modern art to
which heterodoxy is to relate itself in Cittadellarte. In his capacity of a modern artist, Pistoletto generates an a-modern
space, just like Louis-Philippe, in his capacity of aristocrat, lets the new world
of consumption irrupt. This openness towards alterity leads to both internal
tensions and to internecine contradictions and hence to discussions. At any
event, there is more than ample space for discussion within Cittadellarte. At times, this is organised within a formal framework, yet, the most
interesting debate takes place around the table at night, whilst enjoying the
evening meal. Wine and delicious food constitutes the ideal informal context
for both constructive discussion and loss. Consequently, it is not only the
laboratory of the residents what is at the heart of the previous textile
factory, but also its cafeteria. In between copious blathering, a reflexive
discourse regularly pops up in which definitions of art and of the artist are
made and unmade on a permanent basis. It becomes a real stake because there¹s
an aspiration steering it that may be called utopic. At the same time, there¹s
not only an aspiration to materialise this but also an incessant openness and
willingness to accept otherness. As such, Cittadellarte is generating a field of tension in between art and economy, art and
politics, compliant and opponent voices, young artists and Pistoletto, et
cetera. This is the main difference with the manifold other artistic places of
residence, open ateliers, or postgraduate programmes. In Biella, the artist has
to search for relations which reach beyond the art world. While many types of
programmes are limited to a citadel or a sealed-off, safe space, Œa nursery for
art¹, Cittadellarte attempts to take in the
world with all its complexity and contradictions.
Worlds of Grandeur
As told, the main challenge of Cittadellarte is to develop relations between art and other domains of reality. This
is done through experience, by building bridges wherever this is possible.
These connections have to find a link between worlds that have different
languages, modes of behaviour or understandings. Residents have to be able to
relate to other Œworlds of grandeur¹. By using this concept, the French sociologist
Luc Boltanski and his fellow-countryman the economist Laurent Thévenot point at
the polyphony of systems of valorisation that co-exist in a given society. For
the appreciation of Œgreat¹ accomplishments or of persons or objects with
grandeur depends on the regime of values in which one operates. For example,
the French scientists make a difference between the world of inspiration, the
domestic world, the world of opinion, the civil world, the economic world and
the industrial world in which qualities are evaluated in a different manner.
Consequently, the regime of artistic value or the world of inspiration is
characterised by an appreciation of constant move and change that is being
dictated by a singular regime.
³This
world, in which persons have to be ready to welcome changes of state according
to inspiration, is not very stable and poorly equipped. Everything which, in
the other worlds, supports and equips equivalence, such as measures, rules,
money, hierarchies, laws, etc. is being cast aside. Taking into account its
poor level of equipment, this world tolerates the existence of internal tests
which are more or less objectifiable, which protects Œinspired grandeur¹ from
the opinion of others it is indifference to signs of contempt by others
yet, this also constitutes its fragility. In fact, the inspired world has to
deal with the paradox of a Œgrandeur¹ which eludes measure and of a form of
equivalence which privileges singularity.² (Boltanski and Thévenot, 1991, p.
200)
We here deal with an apparatus of evaluation what is totally uncalled
for in the civil world or in the industrial world. The civil world, for example
the domain of politics, is much more geared towards collective and public
acknowledgement within a regime of affirmation. ŒGrandeur¹ is being measured
according to the degree in which one is dealing with collective objectives as
opposed to private preoccupations. It is a world of slogans, resolutions,
univocally formulated objectives, programmes, et cetera. They are used to
convince as many people as possible. Consequently, this insight of Boltanski
and of Thévenot puts Pistoletto¹s use of slogans and manifests in a different
perspective. For, in his capacity of artist, he generates a curious hybrid form
that steers a middle course between artistic and political value regimes. By
doing so, Cittadellarte attempts to force
breakthroughs to another world of Œgrandeur¹.
On the other hand, in the industrial world, qualities
are being evaluated on the basis of their functionality, operational values and
professionalism. Individual acts are collectivised by integrating them within a
common plan, homogeneous rules, directives, mission statements to standardise
the production process within a rational goal-oriented scheme. Both time and
space are organised within a fixed pattern to maximise productivity. Also in
this regard, the slogans of Pistoletto function with regard to the Œgrandeur¹
of the industrial world in order to gain access to it. They obtain the statute
of the mission statements that are quite well-known within the corporate world.
Slogans and manifests operate as vehicles for translations and transmutations
that ought to operate as intermediaries between different worlds of Œgrandeur¹.
They constitute a method to Œenroll¹ other, non-artistic actors. By means of
Œinteressment¹, Pistoletto is linking different worlds of Œgrandeur¹ and
directs them to in-between-possibilities, inter-esse, or the search for links.
This always happens according to the same formula: a hybrid third is constructed
between two apparently irreconcilable polarities. They are part of a broad aim,
not to import new energy from outside into art but to let art become an
integral part of that outside again to re-hybridise society. That is the very
ambitious plan of Cittadellarte: to make as much
as possible passage points all over the globe departing from the heterotopic
space in order to reorder society.
From the mirror to Cittadellarte
As of yet, Pistoletto is looking back upon an oeuvre that spans half of
a century. In his work, he has transformed his singular artistic trajectory
into a broad social movement. The hybrid-ness, alterity and contingency in the
mirror or in Anno Bianco and the heterotopia of
the Minus Objects have been translated into an ambitious art project. By means
of its programme of residence, of pragmatic projects like the introduction of
art in companies; as well as by utopian initiatives like the foundation of a
political movement and the design of an alternative economic system, Cittadellarte creates a space for heterotopia within the ruling order of the Modern
Constitution. Art and reality, fiction and reality are merging into a curious
hybrid in Biella. An artistic concept is being transformed into a political
movement or into alternative economics and the other way round: politics and
economy become a work of art. By means of this a-modern game, Pistoletto is
looking for an answer to particularly relevant questions. How can art or the
artist still have meaning within the hegemony of the market economy? And how
can we continue to observe and evaluate artistic practices within a globalised
context? Only the future will show whether this quest will come to determine
orders of grandeur, as is the ambition. Yet one thing is certain: with his
quest, Pistoletto is asking the right questions at the right moment in time. By
doing so, he assumes his modest mission as a contemporary artist in quite a
particular manner. With Cittadellarte
the Minus Artist created a heterotopic space for a sense of possibility:
everything that is could just as well be different.