Michelangelo Pistoletto's Ground-breaking Art | Brilliant Ideas Ep. 63

brilliant ideas powered by Hyundai Motor [Music] some of the greatest triumphs of British culture and the jewels in the crown are its vast country houses with exquisitely formal gardens the grandest of these is Blenheim Palace near Oxford built in the English baroque styled by architectural genius John Vanbrugh home to the Churchill family it houses a wealth of gilded portraits by master artists its latest artwork may baffle and intrigue radical and surprising it's the work of Italian artist Michelangelo P Stiletto he comes with humble materials but big ideas so I think that his ideas will square up to the bombastic scale of Blenheim very naturally my work he doesn't want to be destructive of the past he was just stimulated something different it's delicious one of those artists who has this huge career behind him you know really innovative great work that kind of broke through after the stranglehold of minimalism and began to engage with materials and technologies and ideas that were much more to do with art and life he's a visionary I consider him a maestro for myself he is not scared about breaking rules in going beyond what people usually think is barriers [Music] Michaelangelo p stiletto is today celebrated as a groundbreaking contemporary artist he's a founding father of the art a pauper a movement in the 60s known for his mirror paintings and arts made from modest materials he's even brought new life to his hometown of Biella in northern Italy and created a vast art complex chittor dell'arte but his Eureka moments came when looking in a mirror trying to paint a self-portrait I remember the moment I understood to be an artist it was when I started to paint my face on the black mirror reflective and I understood that something was happening it was an epiphany the moment I made my face there in very quick way I felt the entire world entering the painting I said but this is the function of the system of our is to understand not only to make but all that happen in one minute and I felt very short I can say I felt very shocked I had to stop and think a little bit and go on after to make the rest of the body [Music] a discover that art was the space of freedom P Stiletto was born in 1933 and grew up in the Piedmont region of northern Italy his father was profoundly deaf but worked as a painter and art restorer as a boy P Stiletto would help his dad in the workshop but times were turbulent Italy was in the grip of fascist rule and entered the second world war on the side of Germany when I was child during the war I was pushed to to make my best in order to be a good boy and everybody around was baking their worst because the society was really creating problems everywhere the Americans were bombing us and the SS were bringing people to the cups so they it was a terrible condition [Music] I was forced to believe in God and in Mussolini at that time he was not happy in that society and I told that my freedom would have been necessary in order to find a solution for myself to survive and at the same time if it was possible to transform the society in a way to not have other people suffering as I had to suffer he Stiletto realized that in order to be a force for good art needed to be inclusive as he started out as an artist he experimented with the ideas of bringing the viewer and their world into the picture a revelation that began with his own self-portraits as a young man some of the things that he restored with his father were Byzantine icons in which the background to to the figure is simply pure gold you can see how the gold background in his own paintings would lead to the mirror so he began experimenting with polished stainless steel mirrors at the beginning I made the mirror painting with my image but immediately I started to take a element of the life into the mirror painting in the mirror I always put a figure a figure that represent the instant that has been captivated by the mirror the mirror is significant in his works because it brings the viewer into the frame rather than the viewer being a passive external figure who's privileged to look at the work the viewer sees themselves in a position in which they're constantly changing I like this concept that you live life every single moment the moment is now but in five minutes it can become something totally different mirror reflections had also been a preoccupation of his father but where P Stiletto senior painted his own image reflecting in a traditional still life fixing the moment in an ever-changing time michelangelo uses his mirrors to continuously reflect the image of the viewer looking at the painting Vermeer paintings brought pista Leto international acclaim in the early 1960s he exhibited frequently in New York City then of its cultural peak and capital of the avant-garde pop arts had taken hold and peacefull Leto was taken in as a pop artist but had misgivings he reacted against the commodification of art and that for him was the started the whole Arte Povera idea using humble worthless materials that are more difficult to sell that don't relate easily to the notion of consumerism pop art is emphasizing the market system and I didn't want that because my work it was based with human being and world universe and humanity I told that it was important to escape that conception of trademark back in Italy he stole a toast commitment to engage others in his artistic experiments led him to open his studio and take the work onto the streets in the late 60s one of his art happenings saw him rolled his large sphere of newspapers around urine he recreated this happening in London 40 years later running the city to this day they may work in sculpture immediately the people in the statement taking process of the world without passing his art is not art but the sphere is something that attract the people and people start to play and the society will not ask is a value of the art in the sense of the economy but the value in sense of participation attempting to escape the system of consumerism at the basis of pop art P Stiletto became one of the leading proponents of Arte Povera a movement originating in Italy as a deliberate provocation against art commercialization artists made work using mundane materials rope newspaper rags with the desire to bridge the gap between everyday life and art piece stilettos cheeky combination of the classic and the contemporary would become a significant work in the movement [Music] Italian artist Michelangelo P stiletto is now in his ninth decade and still working he achieved international acclaim for his mirror paintings and became the driving force in the art movement Arte Povera after para it doesn't mean poor in the sense that is without money but it is concentration in what is essential what is the basic concept of life Arte Povera is reintroducing a dynamic relationship with nature bringing nature back into the world in reaction against the man-made manufacturing process P stilettos use of recycled materials would create the icon for Arte Povera Venus of the rags I had many rags in my studio because they use it for cleaning the Mueller paintings and in the street I have seen a venus of cement and i said i'll i want to bring that to my studio and when i was in my studio automatically i connected her with the racks that they were already there the venus is embracing the rest without word they will fall down and it's life is making our job of keeping the the rags so it's an integration putting together two opposites the stilettos are is inevitably political with a small pay it involves the world in which we live how we relate to society around us and the things we all confront every day P stilettos ideas of integrating the past and present has led him to create projects to shape the future he's returned to his birthplace paella in order to regenerate defunct woolen mills and create a huge art complex known as just el arte cheetah dell'arte used to be a non place it used to be a lost mill a dead place on the river and it has become a place where people can relate to each other dream create to find themselves again I bought a space here in Vienna in order to implement my activity of connection with art and society he thought that was not necessary to build new houses also for sustainability reason I think we have to use what already is empty and reconstruct over the past two decades these five acres of repurposed mill factories have become his home and where P Stiletto has established a thriving community 400 artists passed through each year to research and create visitor spaces include art galleries featuring P stilettos own collection cheaper dell'arte is still in the process of changing viella Nikhil Angelo's community is created here the third paradise sign so in Gala there is the home of the third paradise P stilettos third paradise is an idea for a way of living that he's most proud of unveiled at the Venice Biennale in 2005 the third paradise is P stilettos peace sign an expansion of the mathematical infinity symbol that's gone global the third paradise is a symbol that everybody can use in order to change something in their life is a very simple symbol that put together two opposites good that bad nice and horrible but in the center these two opposites they produce something that didn't exist so it is the symbol of the creation so we have to put the monster in one side and the good in the other side in order to make a balance because we are all monsters and good people but we have to find the middle solution the third paradise has seen multiple different incarnations many of which use natural materials and the human form the third paradise is about natural in artificial we cannot live in a world that is wholly natural and we cannot live in world that is only artificial unless the human being reconnects the two there is no future he's putting forward the idea of the third paradise as an idea that anybody can use it is without copyright I mean in it there's nothing to stop multinational companies putting it on t-shirts a child can use the logo on a wall so he's doing something rather unusual detaching the ideas from himself and just putting them in the world for everybody to use in whatever way they want [Music] while is very simple in a bread loaf which has the shape of the third paradise it was not created by him but it was generated by his vision so this for me it has it all because bread is a symbol in itself and the third paradise in bread is just beautiful high stiletto now plans to bring the third paradise to Britain's Blenheim Palace using more discarded rags it'll be the centerpiece of the exhibition which will also feature a large assembly of old favorites and newer provocative work mr. Leto is really a phenomenal artist he's continued to challenge at the way that people look at art but I think more importantly he's actually evolved from studying himself as a subject from the 1960s to really work with art that transforms society [Music] Michaelangelo p stiletto has journeyed from italy for the final installment of his exhibition at the family home to the Duke of Marlborough Blenheim Palace this world heritage site will host 56 of his artworks transforming the plush surroundings with the rags of his art a poorer and more playful in Congress objects and his obsession with mirrors has free reign here but P stiletto is not here to wreak havoc with the beauty of the palace he's here to make connections placement of his work is key these oversized trumpets in the birthplace of Winston Churchill hark back to the dark days of World War Two and Mussolini's radio propaganda for P stiletto it means a great deal to be here where he feels part of a shared history the place for me is very respectable because Churchill II was a great person that I appreciate from when I was young for me Churchill it was the hope during the war we were in listen radial Andhra and the name was everyday repeated was Church in the church in the church and it became like the new one hope through the radio and we were in the worst time I've been true we shall strive to resist him by land and he we shall be on his track wherever he goes our air power will continue to teach the German homeland that war is not all Luton triumph I feel fantastic that we can meet searching finally even if it's not there for ISM of peace anymore it's absolutely stunning the interaction of the work with the environment is something that I think really speaks about the quality of the work because it doesn't disrupt the historical setting it doesn't overlaid with contemporary thought but it creates a dialogue the most emotionally significant work might be the huge painting does God exist yes I do and I think it's quite a provocative work when I saw that work in the room there I was very happy because I thought that was a great provocation I put my question is God the existing I don't know but I know that I exist I exist an existing I create glad it's not immediately obvious that's something that's so contrasting to the rest of the room would fit but this is the genius of Michelangelo he he manages to take things that you don't think necessarily would make something beautiful and create something beautiful and to that degree he's a real Alchemist in another room P stilettos newspaper sphere has stopped rolling and has been caged within meridian lines representing the world for years abyssion i made the special sphere made with english newspaper of the day of the election to be in europe or to be out of europe and we have the manifesto of both on the newspaper in the next room the saloon a table is cut in the shape of the mediterranean sea Pistoleros idea for a special mediterranean parliament we have three continent connected by the mediterranean sea africa europe in asia and today we see how terrible is the situation because all the conflicts are in the minutes run now but it can be the parliament for the world because the word means the word parliament but we can start from the mediterranean sea particularly surprised by the installation in the fountain outside with just the roof and windscreen of the gold car partially submerged in the water i thought it was a really remarkable work and real clash but also quite an interesting reference to the architecture of the palace and the use of gold which refers to for gold globes on roof of the panelists when he told me the initial idea i didn't quite see the impact that that work actually makes and it's absolutely incredible and people are just completely amazed by it and they don't understand what's going on which is completely fair i think it makes people think about the structures of power about the splendor of Blenheim Palace without approval I think it's something that even if you don't know about that history that you feel when you see the work in this context I thought it would look great but it looks even better than I hoped I mean I would love to come up with the idea of parking cold car on that phone in a long time and we call it Mirage it is something that the people like with the whole well it's a disaster but a goal disaster but the centerpiece his Blenheim show is the work closest to his heart the third paradise suspended in the Great Hall oh I'm overwhelmed obviously the Great Hall is beautiful in itself it's the highest point of the palaces has wonderful carvings but that opening the infinity figure here with its colors and its beckoning in I mean it is quite wonderful there's over my eyes a lot to Modern Art which I didn't have before the work absolutely links the past the present and the future and I think it does that here extremely well and I think it's an absolutely successful exhibition and one that probably can't ever D be repeated in such a way one of the things that people don't like about contemporary art is the feeling that there's not much to it though when you dig beneath the surface you're left with the feeling is that it and I think when you start digging beneath the surface of pistol letters work you tend to find more and more and the ramifications of these endlessly reflecting mirrors keep on going taking you to a labyrinth of logic and ideas that all fit together and very satisfying way pista Leto is one of those grand masters who have exists as a giant within the contemporary scene still making extraordinary work still vital they're still influential and somebody who has absolutely taken on that bigger context of how art relates to the world in which we live today [Music] [Music] brilliant ideas powered by hyundai motor

Channel: Bloomberg Television

Views: 72,534

Keywords: Bloomberg, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Italy, Biella, Cittadelarte, art, brilliant ideas, contemporary art, mirror paintings

Id: 6qHRWcLP8_o

Length: 24min 10sec (1450 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 04 2017