Michelangelo Pistoletto “Walking Sculpture” Performance
Magazzino Italian Art is honored to announce renowned Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto in the latest re-enactment of his 1967 performance “Scultura da Passeggio” (Walking Sculpture).
Join us on Saturday, November 4, 2017, as the artist rolls one of his signature pieces, ‘Sfera di Giornali’ (Newspaper Sphere), down the streets of Cold Spring, New York, in a recreation of the original performance that took place in Turin, Italy, 50 years ago.
A new version of the ‘Sfera di Giornali’ will be the focal point of this upcoming performance, graciously donated by the artist to Magazzino Italian Art and becoming part of its permanent collection. This rendition of the ‘Sfera’ is composed of pages of the three American newspapers which announced the birth of Magazzino for the first time in the fall of 2016: The Highlands Current, The New York Times, and The Putnam County News & Recorder.
The performance will begin at 12:30 p.m. at the Village Gazebo of Cold Spring, located at the bottom of Main Street along the Hudson River waterfront.
Here, Pistoletto will present the project as a salute to the Philipstown community, home of Magazzino Italian Art, and invite the public to join him by rolling the sphere along a portion of Main Street. This performance celebrates not only the existence of Magazzino, but also the local community’s warm welcome of the art space as part of its cultural landscape.
Circling back to the iconic Cold Spring Gazebo at the end of the Sfera’s journey, Pistoletto and Magazzino founders Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu will give closing remarks.
The event is free and open to the public—no RSVP required. For more information or inquiries, please email info@magazzino.art.
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About Michelangelo Pistoletto’s “Walking Sculpture”
Pistoletto’s ‘Sfere di Giornali’ (Newspaper Spheres) were first conceived and executed between 1965 and 1968. These were the years in which the artist created his “Oggetti in Meno”, or “Minus Objects”: works that signified not a rejection of form, but rather the form brought to life.
The ‘Sfera di Giornali’ conceived in 1966 was rolled out onto the streets of Turin in December 1967 and became the historical performance piece known as “Scultura da Passeggio”. During this performance, the ‘Sfera’, after riding on Pistoletto’s red Fiat convertible, crossed Piazza San Carlo and was rolled from Galleria Christian Stein to Galleria Sperone, where it would remain for the duration of Pistoletto’s exhibition at that time. The newspapers with which the artist formed the sphere reflected pressing contemporary news stories, bringing attention to the turmoil that plagued Italy in the late sixties.
The performance has been repeated many times over the course of the last 50 years including at the Tate Modern in London (2009), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2010), and the Louvre Museum in Paris (2013), among others.
Spheres faithfully evoke the concept of circulation, pairing nicely with the literal imagery of newspapers, which circulate information. The significance of the rolling newspapers are manifold; the three principal ideas that Pistoletto wants to convey are an all-encompassing expression of circulation, a manipulation of the passage of time, and the way in which art confronts people every day and brings joy to human life.
