Michelangelo Pistoletto

Silkscreen on super mirror stainless steel
98 7/16 x 59 1/16 inches (250 x 150 cm)
© Michelangelo Pistoletto

Fifty years ago, I made the Venus of the Rags representing the peoples’ journey inside each one of these clothes that are now all worn out. Venus, coming from the past as a symbol of beauty and hope, restores life, regenerates these rags. . . . Now, this message of a new wellbeing for society has to be spread through the salvaging of everything that has been rejected by society. It must be a work of regeneration.

—Michelangelo Pistoletto, 2016

Venere-Persona-Alfa (2018) is the first of five recent Quadri specchianti (Mirror Paintings) made with subjects photographed in 2018 during Pistoletto’s travels in South America. Venere-Persona-Alfa reflects the motif of his 1967 Venere degli stracci (Venus of the Rags), a defining work for Arte Povera, the Italian avant-garde movement of which Pistoletto was a leading figure. The original version of Venere degli stracci incorporates the image of a store-bought plaster statue based on a sculpture of Venus by the neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen that was in turn inspired by the legendary “Aphrodite of Knidos” by Praxiteles. The classical nude is paired with a pile of rags, juxtaposing an icon of eternal beauty with a multiplicity of textiles that symbolize waste and degradation, but also consumerism, recycling, and social marginalization.

The image that forms the basis of Venere-Persona-Alfa was taken during Pistoletto’s 2018 solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Parque Forestal of Santiago, Chile, titled Cada punto es el centro del universo, cada persona es el centro de la sociedad (Each Point is the Center of the Universe, Each Person is the Center of Society). On this occasion, the role of the Venus statue was carried out by a model, recalling Pistoletto’s work during the 1980 performance Venus and the Big Dipper in San Francisco, in which the artist created a public installation consisting of seven Orchestre di stracci (Orchestras of rags) arranged like the stars in a constellation. During this performance, Maria Pioppi, the artist’s long-time partner, impersonated Venus. In Venere-Persona-Alfa, the model pictured is the first of three women who stood in for Venus during the exhibition in Chile, replacing the paragon of classical beauty with the specificity of a contemporary living individual.