“I have lived before and after the conquest of space (man on the moon). Before, I remember looking at a village with the sensation of my thoughts being drawn up toward the heavens. Afterwards, viewing the same place, it was as though I saw it from above, from out of this world. Before doing the mirror-paintings I looked at art and wondered how to progress, now I look back and go ahead without problems. I used to feel that there was something, somewhere that had to ‘come out’ – it was the mirror. (…) Conceptual art is the highest secular endeavor of an antique spiritual gaze towards the heavens. But art reached this goal and when we are already returning from the moon. Capsized by the mirrored-dome we returned upside down to see the great monuments and tiny villages on the face of the earth. What I really want to say is that the only thing has changed in art, with respect to the past, is that now the ‘sacred’ is produced via a descent instead of an ascent.”
—Michelangelo Pistoletto. “Soul”, 1983.
Issue 7: Good Intentions Lead to Hell? is an exploration on how artists intend to engage their artistic practice with broader social and political issues…
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