Provenance
Galeria Cardi, Milan
Private Collection, Switzerland
Catalogue Essay
An abandoned desk, a chair with a girl’s nickname scratched on the back, two computers of different generations have been left on stand-by. Books, notes, files and a landline telephone ornate the setting of an office that is awaiting for its inhabitant. The life-size and realistic representation is in some way turned towards the viewer, the chair slightly turning as if inviting him to come, sit and work. The mirror absorbs the viewer and the space that surrounds him. The boundaries between art and life melt down as well as the art historical categorization of mediums. Pistoletto in his search for a type of art that could surpass the problematic nature of the canvas proposes the mirror as the congenial medium for a contemporary public. The performance of the spectator complements and enriches the object. There is a dual exchange and actualization between the work and the viewer: the former is reanimated by the performance of contemporary life; then latter situates its present existence into a temporal object. Past and present coexist and fluctuate without contradiction. Pistoletto’s mirror painting first found success in 1964 when his works were exhibited in the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris. His oeuvres are among the most prominent and influential of the Italian Arte Povera movement which championed a new anti-elitist form of art that chose everyday found objects as material for art.

Michelangelo Pistoletto

Scrivania con Computers

2008
silkscreen on stainless steel
200 x 125 cm. (78 3/4 x 49 1/4 in.)
This work is signed on the reverse. This work is unique.

Estimate
£150,000 - 250,000 ♠

Sold for £158,500

Contact Specialist
Henry Highley
Head of Sale
hhighley@phillips.com
+ 44 20 7318 4061

London Day Sale 11 February 2014 2pm