MICHELANGELO PISTOLETTO & CITTADELLARTE
for
SALONEUFFICIO – UFFICIO FABBRICA CREATIVA
16-21 April 2008, Loggia dei Mercanti, Milan

SaloneUfficio, the international exhibition fair for the office furnishings sector explores the theme of the Creative Factory Office from the artistic as well as commercial point of view, entrusting conception and realisation to Michelangelo Pistoletto and Cittadellarte.
 

The large-scale installation/event Segno Arte Uffici (Art Sign Offices) was installed in the Loggia dei Mercanti, epicentre of commercial life in medieval Milan (therefore a work place par excellence). It re-proposed emblematically, the cellular structure and activity of Cittadellarte, creative factory composed of operative units named Uffizi, dedicated to integrating art with diverse sectors of social life to create an evolutionary path through responsibility and sustainability.
 

The Segno Arte Uffici project is made up of eight habitational modules in the form of the Segno Arte (Art Sign), created by Pistoletto in 1976, which represents the universal centrality of the person. At its centre the human figure is inscribed at full extension, with open arms raised and legs apart. This is a symbol of a new classicism and further development regarding the depiction of the rapport between the human-universe equilibrium, already detailed by Leonardo da Vinci and before him, by Vitruvio.
 

The modules can be walked through in both directions, and house various kinds of furnishings, with specific reference to office furniture: tables, writing desks, cupboards, shelves and benches, each one in the form of the Segno Arte.
These interactive furnishings invite the public to personally generate the electric energy required to illuminate images relating to each one of the Cittadellarte offices.
The auto-production of electrical energy is a symbol of the eco-sustainability applied to the offices of the “creative factory” of the third millennium.

At the centre of the Segno Arte Offices is a large cube forming a room that can be entered. It is a work by Michelangelo Pistoletto entitled Place of reflection and meditation. Inside, the mirrored walls multiply visitors and the space itself to infinity.
At the centre of the room sits the Metrocube of infinity (Michelangelo Pistoletto, 1966). This cube is also made up of six mirrored internal faces, where the multiplication of the mirrors to infinity is not directly visible, but instead can only be imagined.
The infinite reflection is seen by eye as an experience, and by the mind as imagination.