With the exhibition “Segno Arte” (“Art Sign”), held simultaneously in Rochechouart, Thiers and Vassivière, France, in the summer of 1993, Pistoletto began a new phase of work that developed along two lines, both already marked out in One Hundred Exhibitions in the Month of October (1976): the production of a series of works called Segno Arte by the artist and the invitation to everyone else to make an art sign of their own. Pistoletto’s Segno Arte is a figure formed by the intersection of two triangles that inscribes a human body with raised arms and spread legs. With this form, used principally in a basic module measuring 210 x 120 cm, corresponding to the greatest extension of the artist’s body, Pistoletto made numerous works in different materials, such as doors, windows, pieces of furniture, radiators, garbage cans, etc. In 1999, at the Henry Moore Foundation in Halifax, UK, he created Nuclei of Habitation–Art Sign [Nuclei abitativi–Segno Arte]. As an example of art signs made by others, we can cite a permanent sculpture erected in Krems in 1997 and composed of luminous panels, each with the Art Sign of a local resident.
“Normally, tradition imposes one sign for all — a religious sign, a political sign, an advertising sign, the sign of a product. Signs invade the world, but only artists have created personal signs. Now it is time for others, too, to take responsibility for themselves [...]. Having a sign of their own, everyone has the key to the door of art, a door that leads to a reserved, intimate, personal space as well as to the space of social meetings.”
(M. Pistoletto, in The Mirror’s Door, exhibition catalogue, Sarajevo 2001, 78) |
