SAN GIMIGNANO.- Galleria Continua is presenting Michelangelo Pistoletto’s solo exhibition, La Soglia. For over sixty years, Pistoletto has challenged the boundaries between art and life, inviting viewers to step into his reflective surfaces and become part of the artwork itself. Staying true to the artist’s signature element— the mirror—the exhibition features a series of both new and recent works that highlight an ongoing, evolving investigation.

In this latest body of work, Pistoletto investigates the interplay between the real and the virtual, between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space, and the role of the viewer. In these pieces, a real object is positioned before a mirror, whose appearance shifts with the observer’s perspective. The reflective surface not only completes and visually extends the object but also invites deeper contemplation, fostering an awareness of oneself and one’s relationship with the surrounding environment.

Divisione e Moltiplicazione dello specchio (2025) is part of Pistoletto’s long-running series Divisione e moltiplicazione dello specchio - L’arte assume la religione, first presented in 1978 with a work of the same name accompanied by a reference text. The concept begins with the idea that a mirror can reflect anything except itself. Yet, by cutting the mirror in two and sliding one half along the axis of division toward the other, the mirror begins to reflect itself and multiply, creating a perspective that expands infinitely. This phenomenon underpins much of Pistoletto’s work and thought, with the principle of division serving as a universal foundation for organic growth and, on a social level, as an alternative logic to accumulation and exclusion. In the works on display in this exhibition, the divided mirrors are positioned in the corners of the room, intentionally offset from one another for the first time.

In the San Gimignano installation Uno specchio rotto (2025), framed mirror fragments are arranged on the wall, partially overlapping, visually recalling the 1981 work Il disegno dello specchio, which also featured framed mirrors—some whole, some divided. Whereas the divided mirrors in the earlier work had clean edges, cut according to a precise design, the irregular shapes and edges of the mirrors in the new work—and the title itself—evoke an act of breaking and crushing. This contrast underscores the temporal distance between the two works and highlights the evolution of Pistoletto’s practice within the long-running line of inquiry that began in 1978 with Divisione e moltiplicazione dello specchio - L’arte assume la religione.

Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in 1933 in Biella, where he continues to live and work. In 1962, he created the Quadri Specchianti, which brought him international recognition. A participant in the New York Pop Art scene and a pioneer of Arte Povera, he produced the sculptural series Oggetti in meno (1965–66) and began his evolving series Venere degli stracci in 1967, both using everyday materials. That same year, he started organizing happenings and performances outside traditional exhibition spaces, and in 1968 he founded the interdisciplinary theater company Lo Zoo.

In the 1990s, he established Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto, placing social change at the center of his practice. In 2023, he unveiled a series of new works incorporating QR codes and artificial intelligence technologies, coining the term meta work. He has received numerous international honors, including the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale (2003), the Wolf Prize from the Wolf Foundation (2007), and the Praemium Imperiale for painting from the Japan Art Association (2013).