Michelangelo Pistoletto
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Installation in the Government Distrtict St. Pölten
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The piece 'Figura che mostra lo specchio – Autoritratto' was purchased for the Niederösterreichische Landesbibliothek. It was completed between 1962 and 1968 and is part of a series where Pistoletto combines mirrors and photographs in a new pictorial concept.
Since the early sixties Michelangelo Pistoletto has worked with the motive of the mirror. In 1961 he created his first "Quadro specchiante" within a group of works that relate mirror and photography in a new pictorial conception. Pistoletto spoke in this connection of "photograms." For him photography is significant as a memory which he integrates in the actual surroundings. Proceeding from the idea of creating a place that provokes the transition between photographic reproduction and the mirror, the mirror image emerges at the same time as the actual image – without any time shift between body and reflection. Compared to the maximum slowness of photography, the "Quadro specchiante" represents a maximum speed. It marks the present moment of photography as a point of reference. In the mirror images Pistoletto has reconstructed the human figure in a different context than that of perspective. The mirror provides innumerable images but it is not a means for representation. The work belonging to this group "Figura che mostra lo specchio – Autoritratto" was bought for the library in 2000.
(Susanne Neuburger)
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