As one of the legendary founding figures of Arte Povera, Michelangelo Pistoletto cemented his name in art history with a practice that has remained fiercely loyal to its radical origins while continuously evolving in form, concept and message to stand the test of time. His latest exhibition, “To Step Beyond,” which recently opened at Lévy Gorvy Dayan’s New York space, is yet another testament to his enduring relevance. Presented as a museum-style survey, the show has works from 1961 to 2024, offering a sweeping look at his lifelong exploration of art as a living, breathing force.
For all its transformations over the decades, Pistoletto’s work has maintained its focus on the fundamental dialectic interplay between the work, the viewer and the world. He has always treated art as a tool—an instrument for provoking reflection on the interdependent dynamics that underpin human existence.
Pistoletto’s Arte Povera masterpieces feel more contemporary than ever. Six decades later, his signature mirror paintings still feel astonishingly fresh, functioning as universal reflections—both literal and figurative—on human existence. It’s no accident that he was among the first Italian artists to enter MoMA’s collection (in 1964, one of his “pop art pieces”) just after the museum picked up work by Lucio Fontana. At 91, the Italian master is as sharp and engaged as ever, a fact made abundantly clear by the electrifying energy of his speech at the New York opening.
The undisputed stars of the show are those mirror paintings—works that, according to the artist, best translate the essence of Arte Povera. Conceived in 1962, these pieces introduce pictorial (and later printed) figures onto reflective surfaces, creating a dynamic and ever-changing interaction between the art object and the viewer. Unlike traditional painting, which seeks to recreate reality, Pistoletto’s mirrors embrace it as it is—unfiltered, shifting and alive.
Speaking with Observer at the opening, Pistoletto described his mirror paintings as an “essential phenomenology,” explaining that they have always been his way of answering Arte Povera’s radical call to strip art down to its essential truths. “Arte Povera is radicality,” he declared. “It’s poor in the sense of basic and basilar. Just like a seed in the earth. Arte Povera is rooted in existence.”
His mirrors don’t just reflect—they reveal. The world, the viewer and the space manifest within and beyond Pistoletto’s mirrors as “an energetic mass that manifests in space and time,” one that “exists insofar as space and time make it possible in its existence.” In this, we see the core of Arte Povera’s inquiry into the raw essence of life and matter—a movement that emerged as both a reaction to the postwar industrialization that uprooted Italy’s rural traditions and a rejection of the institutional art world’s increasing obsession with commodification.
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As explored in depth at the recent survey at the Pinault Collection in Paris, Arte Povera emerged as a reactionary aesthetic and philosophy resisting the overproduction and consumption of objects and media. Its artists sought a stripped-down, ascetic truth, an unfiltered engagement with the fundamental principles of matter and energy on which everything depends. Pistoletto, ever the purist, summed it up succinctly: “This is the most essential thing that I can do as a work of art. The creation is not property of mine. I collect what belongs to nature. There is a collaboration with the surrounding universe in the work.”
That ethos runs straight through “To Step Beyond,” with its title that encourages us to confront our reflection, question our existence and simultaneously step beyond the mirror, embracing the multiplicity of dimensions and realities it can contain. More than a conceptual trick, it’s a direct metaphor for how perception—and by extension, existence itself—functions.
As he told Observer, his mirror paintings have always been about more than aesthetics; they are, at their core, an urgent call to reconsider how we live together. For Pistoletto, existence is not a solitary act but a delicate balance within an intricate, interdependent web. His works, then, are not just reflective surfaces but ideological battlegrounds that tap into existential questions and are informed by specific political aims.
In some of his newest works, Pistoletto leans back into Pop, a reminder that before he became one of Arte Povera’s leading voices, he was originally part of the Pop scene in the 1960s. That influence is unmistakable in Color and Light (2024), the most expansive iteration of the work yet, now transformed into an immersive installation for the Beaux-Arts gallery space. Encapsulated within gilded frames, silver and black fragments of mirrors stand starkly against bold single-color backgrounds of orange, yellow, green and blue. It’s a striking convergence of two distinct but complementary impulses: the flashy allure of commercial aesthetics and the raw, material-driven minimalism that evokes his first minimalistic compositions in Arte Povera.
Under an elegant staircase, another Pistoletto classic reemerges: a version of Venere degli Stracci (Venus in Rags) from 1967, now reincarnated as Agenda 2030 (1967/2019). The tension is as sharp as ever—the idealized beauty of Venus stands pristine against a chaotic heap of discarded rags, a blunt confrontation with consumerism’s endless cycle of waste. Behind her, a fractured mirror deepens the metaphor, underscoring a rupture in reality itself—one that cannot be neatly reflected.
In a side room, a series of multimedia mirror paintings combine what appears as the two main sides of his work: Arte Povera’s essentialism and Pop’s commentary on consumer culture. Danger (2024) suspends a tree trunk over a mirror, staging a tense negotiation between nature and human intervention, each element multiplying in the reflective surface. Across from it, Tunnel (2024) presents a sleek, gray curvilinear structure that recalls his Oggetti in Meno (Minus Objects) (1965–66)—those semi-absurd, anti-functional objects that nodded to industrial design while rejecting commodification outright. Here, the metal form conceals itself within a mirror, creating an exchange and interplay that encourages one to question the role of the consumer in experiences and objects.
From what we see in this show, it’s clear that Pistoletto has never stopped interrogating the uneasy tension between techné and nature—an opposition that neither ancient nor rural cultures wrestled with, but one that emerged with industrialization and the relentless sprawl of modern urban life. His career has been one long exploration of this interplay between a human-made and a nature-made reality, pushing at the boundaries of human creation and, ultimately, surrendering to the universal cycle of transformation, destruction and renewal already at work in nature.
And at 91, he’s still at it—still keeping pace with the technological frontier. During the press conference, Dominique Lévy prodded him to talk about his relationship with A.I., emphatically declaring that he’s one of the most advanced artists she knows working with the technology. Pistoletto didn’t miss a beat. “A.I. is my love!” he declared, brimming with enthusiasm. “It is full of issues, but I love it because it is the mind of humanity connected. It’s a big human brain. I can be in contact with humanity with this brain.”
His fascination with the intersection of human intelligence and technology takes tangible form in a new series of QR-coded mirror paintings introduced in this exhibition. These interactive works—linking physical objects to digital content—further complicate the relationship between painting, representation and the ever-mutable nature of reality. They’re also a sharp demonstration of Pistoletto’s ability to keep his work on the cutting edge of innovation.
At the entrance, one such QR code commands attention: QR Code Possession – Autoritratto (2019-23), a self-portrait that fiercely confronts the viewer, challenging them to consider not just their own reflection but also the very illusion of art’s two-dimensional surface. Scanning the code unlocks content promoting his long-running social and environmental initiatives, Terzo Paradiso (Third Paradise) and Formula della Creazione (Formula for Creation)—his latest and most sweeping call to embrace “the state of things” by recognizing the intricate web of interconnections on which all existence depends.
For Pistoletto, Terzo Paradiso is more than a symbol—it’s a practical utopian blueprint for the future, a distillation of the essential creative formula. Three circles, encapsulated within the symbol of infinity, hold the key. “The symbol of infinity contains the finitude in the third circle. We have all the different and contrasting elements, which come together in the middle circle and produce a new element that did not exist,” he explains.
But Terzo Paradiso isn’t just theoretical; it’s a solution—or at least, a vision of one—addressing the divide between techné and nature, between human artifice and the organic world. The first paradise was where humans lived in harmony with nature. The second was the artificial paradise of human intelligence, reaching its peak in today’s science and technology. Next up, as Pistoletto envisions it, is “the third phase of humanity, which is realized in the balanced connection between artifice and nature” and “leads everyone to assume personal responsibility in the global vision.”
Ultimately, for Pistoletto, art is an activator, a catalyst for societal harmony and balance. “Art is the human ability to create, an ability that is used in all ways,” the visionary Italian master tells Observer. “Art can raise awareness of creation and balance political, economic and social relations.”
These ideas aren’t just theoretical musings; they have been put into action through La città dell’arte (The Art City), the headquarters of Terzo Paradiso in Biella, Italy. “La città dell’arte is a place where one seeks in practice this principle of harmony and balance, exploring the relationship that art can have with all the various branches of society,” Pistoletto explains. “There, we act, creating encounters with a school, the university of ideas, that brings together all aspects of society. In this way, we take art as a responsibility: it’s not just the idea of aesthetic enjoyment, but an art with a practical effect.” What began as an abstract philosophy has since evolved into a dynamic community—a network of artists, architects, researchers and institutions working together to develop artistic projects that promote social transformation.
With this, Pistoletto has turned Arte Povera’s founding principles into lived experience, giving full expression to the group’s original militant ambition by creating as his final most complete work of art a platform to exercise that awareness of “the state of things.” He creates in the spaces between people, working directly on the most authentic and primordial element in the systems of relationships they build with one another and their surroundings. “Art can have a worldview that perhaps the world without art cannot have,” he remarks near the end of our conversation.
At a time of climate crisis, geopolitical upheaval, and the growing realization that our current economic systems are unsustainable, Pistoletto’s Arte Povera masterpieces feel more contemporary than ever. This exhibition makes clear that his entire practice has always been about confronting the deep tension between the Anthropocene and nature, questioning how and why matter—both material and conceptual—matters. In the end, his work is a call to action: an attempt to resolve these conflicts, not by retreating from them, but by envisioning a more sustainable future—one in which we recognize ourselves as part of a vast and complex interdependent existential network.
“Michelangelo Pistoletto: To Step Beyond” is on view at Lévy Gorvy Dayan in New York through March 29, 2025.
