Michelangelo Pistoletto: Figuration and Cultural Politics

Examining the Italian artist's career-long exploration of the human figure, this book offers new perspectives on the history of postwar and contemporary art

Widely regarded as the central protagonist of the twentieth-century Italian art movement Arte Povera, Michelangelo Pistoletto (b. 1933) is known for his movement-defining Minus Objects and iconic mirror paintings, as well as his recent social practice addressing migration and climate change. What has unified Pistoletto's work over six decades, argues author Tenley Bick, is his persistent engagement with the human figure.

This book traces the figure as a throughline across the artist's painting, photomontage, sculpture, installation, performance, and social practice, from the formative years of his career in the 1950s to today. Bick situates Pistoletto's exploration of the figure within the culture and leftist politics of Italy and beyond in the 1960s and 1970s to examine why, in an era that was defined for many by the end of humanism, Pistoletto held on to the figure as a key critical strategy. Featuring previously unseen early drawings and design work, newly discovered exhibition histories, and insights gleaned from interviews with the artist, this volume reframes our understanding of a prolific artist and of artmaking in the postwar era.