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20 - 20. 20AR W MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO (B. 1933)
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Estimate €250,000 - €350,000
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Description
20. 20AR W MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO (B. 1933) Attesa n.5 1962-1973 signed, titled and dated 1962/73 on reverse silkscreen on polished steel plate 225.5 x 125.5 x 2.5 cm. 88 3/4 x 49 7/16 x 1 in. Provenance Studio Casoli, Milan Private collection, Italy (acquired from) Sale: Sotheby's, Milan, Contemporary Auction, 23 November 2022, lot 25 Acquired at this sale by the current owner Exhibition Rome, Studio Casoli, Michelangelo Pistoletto. Quadri specchianti, 1998, illustrated in black and white Attesa No. 5 is a remarkable example of Michelangelo Pistoletto's Quadri Specchianti (Mirror Paintings) series, a body of work that the artist began creating in the early 1960s and which has since become emblematic of his artistic legacy. The genesis of Quadri Specchianti can be traced back to a pivotal moment in 1961, when, after applying black paint and then a thick layer of varnish to a canvas, Pistoletto realised that he could see his reflection looking back at him from the surface. This discovery opened the way to a host of new pictorial and philosophical possibilities. Pistoletto's Quadri Specchianti went through various technical stages. The very first examples consisted of cut-out silhouettes painted on tissue paper and fixed to reflective stainless steel. As early as 1962, the artist began collaborating with professional photographers, enlarging their monochrome images and transposing them onto tracing paper. It was in the 1970s, however, that Pistoletto refined his process to give it its definitive form, perfecting a silkscreen technique derived from a manual four-colour printing process. Attesa n. 5 belongs to the last stage, and testifies to the maturity of the artist's practice. As Pistoletto himself observed, the Quadri Specchianti are defined by certain fundamental characteristics: time functions as an active component rather than simply being represented; the viewer and his environment are an integral part of the work, so that each piece becomes a "self-portrait of the world". Moreover, the works stage a meeting of opposites - static and dynamic, surface and depth, absolute and relative - while moving resolutely away from the illusionism of the Renaissance pictorial tradition. Instead of a single, forward-looking viewpoint, the reflective surface opens up a double perspective, blurring the boundary between art and life. In Pistoletto's Quadri Specchianti, the photographic figures, with their own temporal immobility, coexist with a constantly changing present, so that the work is perpetually renewed as each new viewer passes by. This interaction is made even more convincing by the way in which the works are exhibited: standing on the floor, or slightly above it, their illusionistic depth becomes all the more immediate and immersive. In an interview in 1969, the artist said: "The Quadri Specchianti could not exist without an audience. They are created and recreated according to the movement and interventions they reproduce". (Michelangelo Pistoletto, quoted in "Michelangelo Pistoletto: Works", online).
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About the sale Post-War & Contemporary Art including the Cluzel Collection
Auction location
Auction time 06/04/2026 at 4:00 PM
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