Cittadellarte Pistoletto e il Terzo Paradiso
CAMec La Spezia 8-12-2007 / 24-03-2008
Exhibition curated by Bruno Corà
 
 
Pistoletto and Cittadellarte first Polis of a  future aware society
by Bruno Cora’
In 2004, when the Modern and Contemporary Art Center of Spezia, which I was entrusted to direct, beganits life, before planning any exhibition I thought it would be a significant gesture to invite a number of international artists to speak publically about what should be the fundamental aspects of the cultural road to follow in the structuring of a contemporary art center’s activities, in that particular conjuncture. The first protagonist was Michelangelo Pistoletto, followed a few weeks later by Pedro Cabrita Reis and Daniel Buren.
The reasons for beginning this reflection on the orientation of the gallery precisely with Pistoletto were many: the deep esteem for the work of this artist, the extraordinary experiences I have had with him over the course of more than thirty years, the aesthetic ideas that I was able to develop through the study of his work and the knowledge and adhesion to that chapter of his revolutionary actions, in an artistic and ethical sense, that brought Pistoletto to conceive and begin the creation, in Biella his home town, of a Cittadellarte that has since become proactive in the development of tangible processes for the responsible transformation art and society.
In the years prior to the foundation of Cittadellarte, with Michelangelo and Maria I shared the phases of the gestation of that idea, which then became a real “ideal city”, anything but Utopian, on the contrary, courageously feasible.
Those were the years of Progetto Arte, the grand review Habitus Abito Abitare in Prato, the Porte of Palazzo Fabroni in Pistoia, and the Viennese experience at the Bildende Kunst Akademie. Then I witnessed the rapid development of the most advanced adventure ever lived by a “collective artist”, as Pistoletto liked to define himself in those times.
Cittadellarte is now on the road to becoming an independent reality, shared by various subjects, numerous artists and operators from a truly remarkable variety of social sectors.
Today it is certainly the cultural phenomenon most pregnant with prospects and consequences that Italy and Europe have seen in recent years.
For all these reasons, when I heard Pistoletto speak once again at the Festival of the Mind in Sarzana, in the summer of 2007, to a hall packed with attentive people – just as a few years earlier in Spezia I eagerly anticipated the results that the Cittadellarte exhibition, already scheduled at the CAMeC would achieve – in my heart of hearts, I was delighted about it. While making preparations to conclude the first four years of works at the CAMeC, for me it was a great satisfaction, to work on preparing this exhibition dedicated to Pistoletto and Cittadellarte, of which I consider myself an honorary citizen.
All those who work at Cittadellarte, the works they do, the projects they conceive and embark on within it constitute, in this our frenzied reality, an intact dimension, full of well directed energies, strings of distinctive actions in an economy of aware transformation oriented toward making a change to the ruinous course modern society has taken over recent decades.
As well as inspiring wonder and great interest, the exhibition of the entire structure of Cittadellarte’s current projects, seen in the spaces of the CAMeC, renders each of us more certain that, with the masterly contribution of a great artist like Pistoletto, new intellectual and artistic forces are preparing to give art qualities capable of taking on the challenges of a reality at the crossroads between “inferno” and “Third Paradise”.
Bruno Corà
Lugano, February 2008
Editorial:
From the common denominator to the common multiple
by Paolo Naldini
Take 3 numbers, for example 2, 4 and 10.
Let’s say we want to find out, for example, what they have in common, what a group relationship is based on, its common identity.
One possible answer is that they’re all even numbers. Or they’re all whole numbers. A number elaborate response, but easy for anyone educated in the western cultural system, is “let’s define the lowest common denominator” meaning the number contained in each and by which all of them are divisible. In our case, 2.
Now let’s imagine that someone proposes another concept or construct as common to these three numbers: the lowest common multiple, meaning the number that contains each of the three numbers and is divisible by them. In our case, 20.
So what happened? A simple change of paradigm.
Let’s imagine that the three numbers are people. Let’s imagine they intend to establish the basis for cohabitation. In the case that the predominant paradigm is the common denominator, the shared capital the group can dispose of is represented by 2. But if the predominant paradigm were instead the common multiple, the group’s shared capital becomes 20.
In the first two cases, two individuals out of the three only recognize themselves partially as belonging to the group identity: the 4 and the 10, evidently they posses further elements with respect to the common patrimony. These elements, qualities and characteristics that define the individual identity, are “eliminated” by the paradigm of the common denominator. The result is that the group “loses” a patrimony of 18. But if we pursue the hypothesis that individual qualities can contribute to the development of the community, it is evident that the first paradigm expresses a development potential of just one tenth of the second.
The thesis is that art as “responsible social transformation through creative ideas and projects”, the mission of Cittadellarte, represents and requires the paradigm of the multiple in all contexts of human interaction: from the organization of a small enterprise to national and international
socio-political systems. Read all
 
RESPONSIBLE PRODUCTS
 
Every product takes on social responsibility. With this programmatic slogan, the Cittadellarte Production Office develops creative collaborations with businesses, artisans, category associations and public authorities, to realize products that embody quality and innovation for ecosustainable development at local and international level.
 
CUBES IN MOTION
ART, CRAFTS AND PRODUCTION CREATING TOGETHER
Cubes in motion, embassy of the Biella district and Piedmont, realizes the basic modules of a variable architecture, and the heart of an installation designed to present the excellence of Biella at a variety of regional, national and international trade fairs and exhibitions.
The cubes are both an instrument for displaying the territory’s typical products, and products in their own right that create new economic prospects for local craftsmen.
The Cubes in motion project - the result of collaboration between the Region of Piedmont, the CNA (the National Crafts Confederation), the National Chamber of Commerce, the Tavola dell’Orso Consortium, the Piedmont artisans of Excellence and the artists of Manydee (the network of residents who have taken part in UNIDEE - Università delle Idee di Cittadellarte) -, promotes the productive, morphological and cultural identity of a territory, bringing together art, crafts and industry.
Placed in close contact with the creativity of international artists, the world of local crafts and production gains significant value added in terms of global level dynamics, trends and processes. In this way the territory demonstrates the vitality of its social, economic and cultural fabric.
 
YEAR ONE
work by Michelangelo Pistoletto realized with the inhabitants of Corniglia (Cinque Terre) and his family.
Images from the various performances are shown at the exhibition: Quirino Theater, Rome 1981; Castello di Rivoli Contemporary Art Museum, Turin 1991; Marstall, Munich 1994.
The actors on the stage hold up architectural structures with their heads, while they narrate, like a talking painting or a living sculpture, the history of the world, from Cain and Abel to Romulus and Remus, from Egyptian to Roman civilization, from the first space flights, expressed in the dialect of Corniglia and simultaneously translated, to the present day.
It is the representation of a city where the people are the architecture. Steps and voices reaching from afar can be heard, echoing the course of history. The inhabitants of Corniglia are a living fragment of contemporary society standing before their past, and at the same time, their future.
 
COMMUNICATION
MERGED TERRITORIES - the meeting as a generator of creation
The fantasy flags come from a hybridization of the emblems of the various countries.The work (2000-2006) by Juan Esteban Sandoval visualizes the interaction between different cultures, outlining a symbolic geography in continual redefinition.
 
EDUCATION
UNIDEE - UNIVERSITY OF IDEAS -  educate and activate through art
UNIDEE – University of Ideas realizes an international residence program aimed at training the new profession of “activator” that combines the characteristics and abilities of the artist, curator, entrepreneur and social designer.
The Cittadellarte Education Office, in collaboration with the Abo Akademy University (Finland) and the European Cultural Parliament, has started NUROPE, The Nomadic University for Art, Philosophy and Enterprise in Europe, a travelling workshop for reflection on globalization and the possibilities for economic and social development in Europe. On the lines of creative collaboration that places art at the center of a responsible social transformation, the DIDACTIC activities realize workshops with schools, city quarters and various territorial and national organizations.
 
SPIRITUALITY
PLACE OF MEDITATION AND PRAYER  a new idea based on the spirituality of art
Mobile version of the Place of meditation and prayer, realized by Pistoletto in the Paoli Calmettes Oncology Center in Marseilles (1998-2000). Exhibits the symbols of the four monotheist religions around the Cubic Meter of Infinity (1966), the radiant center of art’s spirituality.
 
LITERATURE
TURNING POINT LITERATURES the written word as an act of transformation
Turning point literatures collects and exhibits books that mark changes and anticipate processes of transformation in society.
The Living Library installation (2005) by Charlie Jeffery.
 
POLITICS
LOVE DIFFERENCE - ARTISTIC MOVEMENT FOR AN INTERMEDITERRANEAN POLITIC - eliminating distances maintaining differences
Love Difference is an association that activates a network of cooperation, nurtured by art, to encourage the meeting and promote the cohabitation of different cultures in the Mediterranean area. Love Difference offers itself to the political scenario as an organ for consulting and the development of inter-cultural processes. It organizes meetings, projects and workshops to promote a civility that applauds differences, bringing love to those places where differences between people and cultures generate tragic conflicts.
 
LOVE DIFFERENCE ICE CREAM
LOVE DIFFERENCE ICE CREAM AND SWEETS AS CULTURAL PASSPORT
 
Art and gastronomy come together to promote dialogue between the cultures of the Mediterranean. Between the 22nd and 24th of February 2008 Love Difference – Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Policy invites artists and pastry chefs from all over the Mediterranean area to the CAMeC in La Spezia to develop the basis for the Love Difference Pastries project.
The project stems from Michelangelo Pistoletto’s idea for the Love Difference Ice Cream made with halva, a paste made with sesame seeds very common in the Arabic countries of the Mediterranean and the Balkan regions. In the words of the artist, the Love Difference Ice Cream represents a cultural passport symbol of the intercultural meeting of two different traditions of the Mediterranean area.
 
THE TASTE OF DIFFERENCE

The international meeting Love Difference Ice Cream and Sweets as cultural passport, organized by Love Difference (Emanuela Baldi, Filippo Fabbrica, Sonja Linke, Irene Leveghi in collaboration with Chiara Cardinali and Alma Khasawnith) at the CAMeC in La Spezia, is the first event of the Love Difference Pastries project, stemming from the idea by Michelangelo Pistoletto to use ice cream and sweets in general as bearers of
a message of dialogue between cultures. This is an occasion to present and structure the concept of a Mediterranean network of Love Difference Pastries, places in which to realize and distribute Love Difference Sweets, as well as spaces for meeting and sharing, in which art and creativity contribute to the responsible development of society
 
NEW INFINITY SYMBOL
SYMBOL by Michelangelo Pistoletto,  by Paolo Santini in recycled aluminum  2007
"The New Symbol of Infinity comprises of not two, but three circles. The central one delineates a pregnant belly, product of the coupling of the two circles that made up the old symbol. This belly represents the generation of the Third Paradise, after the first paradise, the natural one, and the second paradise, the artificial one. The open project of the Third Paradise leads science, technology, art and culture to restorelife to the Earth."
(M. Pistoletto)
 
The installation creates a game of shadows and reflections which multiply the sign within the space
 
SCIENCE
 
LEONARDO’S MAN
AND THE ART SIGN OF PISTOLETTO
The Vitruvian man drawn by Leonardo da Vinci in around 1490 in a single image synthesizes the two anthropometric figures that Vitruvius dealt with separately in De architettura (I cent B.C.): the homo ad quadratum and the homo ad circulum. Leonardo’s man, standing with legs and arms outstretched, is contained exactly in the most perfect of geometric figures: the circle and the square. This drawing visualizes the relationship between human proportions and the order of the cosmos.
The Art sign man by Pistoletto is the representation of a person with arms raised and slightly open and legs spread, in a form like the letter X. The person is recognized as a specularly composed symmetrical organism. The geometric figure it identifies and that encompasses it consists of two equal circles in addition to those of Leonardo’s geometry: one encompasses the outstretched arms, the other the spread of the legs.
The circles intersect at the center of the body, at the umbilical, suggesting the mathematical sign for infinity.
 
ARCHITECTURE 
The Floating Home - @home for low environmental impact development
project by Tiziana Monterisi, architect
Natural architecture has to respect two fundamental principles: respect for man and respect for the environment. The awareness of the impact that our choices inevitably have on all that surrounds us is a necessary attitude for life in society, and the basis of the research and activities of the Cittadellarte Architecture Office.
The Floating Home - @home is a comfortable residential unit designed to temporarily occupy the border areas between land and water. Realized as a dry construction using natural, recycled and recyclable materials (wood, aluminum and glass), it has a floatation system like that of a catamaran. This habitation project permits temporary fruition of spaces through the support of technology that offers full independence in terms of hot water and electrical energy production.
The Floating Home - @home proposes a lifestyle in equilibrium between the economic, social, cultural and technological advantages of the big city and the psychological and physical advantages of living in harmony with nature and freedom of movement.
 
ECONOMICS
TURNING POINT PRODUCTS to bring a sustainable equilibrium to the home, the city, the territory and the planet
Turning Point Products is a project for the research, collection, exhibition and sale of materials of natural or recycled origins, born from the synergy between avant-garde technology and responsibility toward the environment. The materials selected by the Cittadellarte Architecture and Economics Offices are exhibited inside a Recycled Supermarket that uses the shelving of an abandoned supermarket.
The Turning Point Products review proposes itself as a reference point for those wishing to learn about the advantages offered by natural materials, at all levels of architectural design.
 
PRODUCTION
ITALIA IN PERSONA, THE CULTURAL MISSION OF THE ITALIAN PRODUCT
art and enterprise
The project Italia in Persona, the cultural mission of the Italian product brings to the Italian production system the awareness of the cultural mission incorporated in its very processes and products, and develops this awareness as a competitive strategic factor in the global scenario. Italia in Persona takes its name from the Italian productive reality, entirely oriented toward the person.
Biella shop window for Italia in Persona, in collaboration with the Biella District Committee, presents the Biella district as sample-district for communicating how the resources on which it is founded have brought it distinction in the world.
Biellese products are presented in the works Art Sign - Unlimited (1976 - 1997) by Pistoletto.
 
ART
WOOLLEN - THE REINSTATED APPLE by Michelangelo Pistoletto
(2007) Fondazione Zegna - Cittadellarte Collection
"Woollen – The Reinstated Apple is a nature and artifice represented. According to tradition, the bite out of the apple represents man’s detachment from nature.
The Reinstated Apple, on the other hand, is a symbol of a re-conjunction of the artificial and natural spheres. Wool, which in this work gives shape to the apple, is a continually renewable natural element; it is the undressing of an animal to dress humans to the benefit of both."
(Michelangelo Pistoletto)
 
The international meeting Love Difference Ice cream and Desserts as a cultural passport, organised by Love Difference – in collaboration with Chiara Cardinali, Alma Khasawnith and Irene Leveghi - at CAMeC della Spezia, 22-23-24 February 2008.



Art and gastronomy come together to promote dialogue between the cultures of the Mediterranean.
Between the 22nd and 24th of February 2008 Love Difference – Artistic Movement for an InterMediterranean Policy invites artists and pastry chefs from all over the Mediterranean area to the CAMeC in La Spezia to develop the basis for the Love Difference Pastries project.
The project stems from Michelangelo Pistoletto’s idea for the Love Difference Ice Cream made with halva, a paste made with sesame seeds very common in the Arabic countries of the Mediterranean and the Balkan regions. In the words of the artist, the Love Difference Ice Cream represents a cultural passport symbol of the intercultural meeting of two different traditions of the Mediterranean area.