Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 1933) is one of Arte Povera's most significant protagonists. It is with the Mirror Paintings that Pistoletto's name is mostly closely identified, an ongoing series begun in 1962 that has earned him rapid and enduring international recognition. These works are made from sheets of mirror-finished stainless steel, fitted with a full-length portrait photograph that has been meticulously traced and painted onto its surface (after 1971 the image was silkscreened on). The inclusion in the work of the viewer, his or her surroundings and his or her interaction with the photographed person in the mirror is the key to the boggling reflexivity that drives this work. This book evaluates the Mirror Paintings of the past four years. It includes an interview with the artist and a fully illustrated chronology of Mirror Paintings from 1962 to the present.

"Pistoletto has been making his Mirror Paintings for almost fifty years, documenting the world that he sees and lives in. They are diaristic, time-based works incorpo- rating not only the history of photography in the period he has been making them - he has proceeded from using glass negatives to Polaroid to digital photography, from the hand painted to the screenprinted, from black and white to colour, from static to motion - but also the history of clothing, artefacts, manners and mores. As time passes so the images he presents on the surface of the mirror become increasingly like relics reminding the viewer of his own mortality and of times past. But he also presents the viewer with a reaffirmation of his individuality, his distinct- ness from what he sees, for every time he looks in the mirror he evokes what Lacan called the mirror stage, the moment in a young child's life when he recognises that the image he gazes at is his own reflection and he gradually forms an identity separate from his mother. Every time I look in the mirror I encounter myself as the other, and in receiving my gaze can explore both my separateness from and connectedness to the world. A Mirror Painting is a means to orientation in the world, of encouraging conscious experience of phenomena as experienced from the first person point of view, invoking perception, thought, memory, bodily awareness and social activity. It is a work of art in the world and the world in a work of art."

Jeremy Lewison, from 'Looking at Pistoletto / Looking at Myself'.

LOOKING AT PISTOLETTO / LOOKING AT MYSELF

SIMON LEE GALLERY, LONDON, 2007

SOCIETY AND SURFACE:TWO INTERVIEWS WITH MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO

LUHRING AUGUSTINE GALLERY, NEW YORK, 2008

AN ETHICAL APPEAL OF ART:MEDIA, MEMORY AND THE MIRROR

GALERIA CHRISTIAN STEIN, MILAN, 2007 & 2010

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

GROUP EXHIBITIONS