Michelangelo Pistoletto

The essence of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s art, just like Daniele Segre’s cinema, lies in the ability to engage with reality with the intent of actively influencing society. Encouraged by the director’s discreet and maieutic approach—whom he met during the Prix Italia 2012—Pistoletto redefines his personal and creative identity by retracing encounters, decisions, and actions while also revealing his small obsessions. His narrative seamlessly moves between the “retrospective” dimension of the past—evoked in a nearly Proustian manner, blending memories with familiar scents—and the “prospective” vision of the future, embodied in the symbolic sign of the “Third Paradise” project. The images of the “mirror paintings”, among the most renowned and significant works of the artist’s long career, introduce and accompany this portrait-interview, virtually replacing the director’s questions. “For me, being an artist means being free to think and act, to have no fear in front of anyone in society. To believe that society as a whole can, in some way, be a material to transform. That is why I feel happy to be an artist—because I feel free and responsible.” (Michelangelo Pistoletto). Shot mostly in the setting of Cittadellarte in Biella on the eve of the exhibition that featured Pistoletto at the Louvre in Paris, the film premiered worldwide in the fall of 2013 at Cinema Massimo in Turin.