Michelangelo Pistoletto, poet of the mirror, sage of the arte povera movement, is so famous in his native Italy and so admired abroad that it is amazing he has never before had a one-man show in London. And what a beautiful experience it turns out to be. You wind your way through his labyrinth, moving from one sequestered sanctuary to another, pondering the cumulative connections until you are returned to the place where you began, which suddenly acquires an entirely new meaning. It is the best use of the Serpentine’s circle of galleries imaginable.
And the imaginable (or unimaginable) is exactly what Pistoletto has in mind, as it seems to me. His vision is nothing less than heaven itself. What can we imagine going on up there, through there, along there, wherever it may be? (The show manages to encompass all these different orientations with remarkable clarity.)
And what do we imagine it to be, this atmospheric dimension of infinity in which all manner of things will be well: a blank, an immense lightness, a teeming convocation representing the bodily resurrection? Again, all these possibilities are very purely and simply invoked in The Mirror of Judgment.
Photo: EPA
The starting point of Pistoletto’s paradise, so to speak, is the opening gallery at the Serpentine, where a disc of mirror on the floor shows us the cupola overhead, containing the sky more or less in the manner of a James Turrell installation: that is to say, so that one is aware of the scudding clouds and ever-changing light effects as if they were both a framed painting and a moving picture projected on a screen.
But drawing one away from this optical pleasure is a mass of corrugated manila cardboard of the sort used for packing — bales of it upended and scrolling around one gallery and into the next. It stands at waist height and looks from above very like the rippling layers of chocolate in a Cadbury’s Flake. Its fragility is self-evident, its mundane associations obvious. Catch your clothes on it by accident and it gives a faint but melodic riff.
But the broad effect is of enticing fields of corn and swirling clouds seen as if in diagram — the sort that might just as well appear on a medieval map, an Indian scroll, a Persian carpet, a Renaissance altarpiece. The associations are beguilingly clear and apt.
Photo: EPA
For all through the show, visitors are led into unexpected enclaves, each of which is fitted with mirrors and some sort of religious object. A Victorian prie-dieu, carved with a commemorative inscription; a prayer carpet; a full-scale Buddha who stands sublimely contemplating himself in the mirror, as we too are able to see ourselves wherever we go.
You might imagine being in a synagogue or examining yourself kneeling and praying to Allah. Mirrors are arched to form the Tablets of the Law or placed to face in the direction of Mecca. They multiply everybody around you and simultaneously present a religious democracy. In no time at all, and very surprisingly, the galleries feel like another world.
Pistoletto’s mirrors are never quite as simple as they appear. At the Serpentine, some are slightly tinted, giving a look of the past, while others seem brighter than they should be. Mirrors never give the world back exactly as it is, in any case, reflecting everything slightly smaller than life. And this has the effect of turning visitors into smaller versions — depictions — of ourselves, wending our way through the passing pageant, and narrative, of life.
Photo: EPA
Mirrors always imply self-scrutiny in Pistoletto’s art and here they are positioned to show us a society made up of monotheistic religions. An atheist might find this satirical, but that is not the tone or structure of the show. The overwhelming sense is of open-armed generosity toward everyone in their journey through life.
For followers of Pistoletto, the show may well stand as a retrospective by other means. Here is his Well from 1965, in which people peered over a wall and saw themselves quite dissociated and alien in the mirror far below; his curious aluminum trumpets that could never sound clearly at the Last Judgment but hark back to the loudspeakers on which he heard Mussolini’s speeches broadcast as a child.
And in the central gallery is a ring of three linked ovals suspended from the ceiling and pierced in the middle by a vast mirrored obelisk that instantly evokes the classical Italy of the Romans. The ovals form the symbol of infinity, which is itself illustrated by the obelisk in so far as every single viewer sees it from a slightly different angle and in a different way — oppressive, stunning, exhilarating, stringently architectural, powerfully spiritual (these were overheard responses) and so on.
Faith and objectivity, fellow feeling and individuality: All were occasioned by that bright, dematerializing object — and what it points to, once again, is the fathomless, abstract sky.
One cannot overstate the simplicity of Pistoletto’s means and methods, nor their effect. Everything is so plainly itself — a bit of cardboard, a piece of mirror - that nothing can distract from his equally lucid metaphors.
A labyrinth is a guideless journey through which one must find one’s own way, as in life. It is also a path one must follow, however haphazardly, to get to the exit. In Pistoletto’s exhibition, one turns and turns, looking for the center, the crux, the path, only to catch oneself searching in the mirror. Oneself and everyone else as well: For although we are all brought up to different religions, we seem to share a putative destination — a heaven that is full of us.
As for the final experience, one returns to the cupola, and its reflection, and discovers in these images an escape route, a phantasm, a stairway to heaven: each endlessly reflected. How will it all end?
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist