On Thursday 22nd March, at 18.00, in the Loggia della Rustica of the Ducal Palace in Mantua (entrance through the Giardino dei semplici) Michelangelo Pistoletto’s exhibition “Da Cittadellarte alla Civiltà dell’Arte” will open to the public. Specifically, the exhibition will be set up in the Cortile della Cavallerizza and in the Appartamento della Rustica, and will run from 23^rd March to 12^th June 2018. The event presents, in reverse order, the aesthetic process of the artisti from Biella and is the fruit of a collaboration between the Ducal Palace Museum Complex in Mantua, Citadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto and Moz-Art (Contemporary Art), with the critical curatorship of Peter Assmann, Fortunato D’Amico, and Sergio Pajola, and contributions by Renata Casarin, Marco Farano, Gianfranco Ferlisi, Antonio Mazzeri, Cittadellarte’s director Paolo Naldini and Giuliano Vallani.

“The experience of Michelangelo Pistoletto is unique,” we read in the press release of the presentation – “more and more oriented towards combining an expressive effectiveness and a proactive militancy in all the contexts representing instances in which the citizens are interested in a social and environmental transformation, together with them to conceive and realize projects stimulating the participations of the individuals in the actions of change and regeneration of the territory. In this specific exhibition, the installations follow a narrative logic leading to the understanding of an artistic research developed in over 60 years of activity, which, starting from the first self-portraits and through the mirror painting, transfers the reflection of himself into a meeting with the external world and the others. The works on display are therefore milestones in a process questioning philosophical, spiritual, social and scientific concepts, in a dimension identifying art as the means to give real forms to an ethics aiming at the completion of the work of humanization, a respect for diversity, the safeguard of the environment, ominiteism and demopraxy”.

Let’s therefore consider Cittadellarte’s past: the beginning of the journey was in 1994, when, with the publication of the Progetto Arte manifesto, Michelangelo Pistoletto suggests a new role for the artist, placing art at the centre as a direct means of interaction with all sectors of human activity; the following step was in 1998, with the establishment of Cittadellarte in a former wool mill in Biella. With time, it has become a big laboratory welcoming hundreds of young artists from all over the world. Its objective is to generate, through art, processes of responsible transformation in the different sectors of the social fabric. Art is therefore intended an interdisciplinary, multicultural and flexible instrument able to interconnect knowledge, people and places, besides generating conscious and responsible processes towards the community. Cittadellarte was initially characterized by different departments: Education, Ecology, Economy, Politics, Spirituality, Production, Work, Communication, Architecture, Fashion and Food, they all helped develop a direct interaction with public and private institutions and with all the organizations interested in a change.

(A moment of the press conference held this morning – 13^th March)

But let’s now skip back to the present: today, Cittadellarte still is a big laboratory. It is also a generator of creative energy, currently represented in the world by hundreds of ambassadors who, through Forums and Working Sites, are committed to realize on their territories the ethical project of art, developed according to the method of the trinamics and synthesised in Michelangelo Pistoletto’s symbol of the Third Paradise. In the context of the exhibition in Mantua, the event will offer schools a didactic programme curated by the educational services of the Ducal Palace Museum Complex called “Portraits in the mirror?”
Here is some practical information about the exhibition: it will be open from Friday to Sunday, from 10.00 to 18.00, and the entrance fee is 10 €. Visitors in possession of an admission ticket for the Ducal Palace will be entitled to a 50% reduction, which also applies to under-18s.

The catalogue of the exhibition will be available from the venue.
The exhibition was conceived on an initiative by Moz- Art (Contemporary Art) and realized with the collaboration of the Ducal Palace Society and the support of Fondazione Banca Agricola Mantovana, Fondazione Comunità Mantovana, Fondazione Bpa, Gruppo Tea and the City of Mantua. The project was also made possible by the contribution of the main partner “Mantova Outlet Village”.