This Is One Michaelangelo You Won't Want To Miss!

The artist (left) with curator Carlos Basualdo.

If your name is Michaelangelo and you're Italian and you're an artist, you'd better be able to live up to the name.
Fortunately, that's not a problem for contemporary master Michaelangelo Pistoletto.
Pistoletto  is widely recognized in Europe as one of its most influential artists and is increasingly gaining recognition in the United States.
Now, the artist’s first focused exhibition in the U.S. has opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and it is impressive, to say the least.
In more than two decades, Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many, 1956–1974 places Pistoletto’s work in the context of the postwar sociocultural transformations of Italy, Western Europe, and North America while also exploring its relationship to Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art. The exhibition includes more than one hundred works of art—many of which have never before been seen in the United States—that range from early self-portraits to subsequent series of works, including Quadri specchianti (Mirroring Paintings), Oggetti in meno (Minus Objects), and Stracci (Rags).
Michelangelo Pistoletto: From One to Many traces the progression of Pistoletto’s artistic focus from a rigorous investigation of the representations of the self in the mid-1950s to his collaborative actions of the late 1960s to the mid-1970s that lie at the heart of many artists’ participatory practices today.
We recently joined the artist and curator Carlos Basualdo for a tour of the exhibition and we felt invigorated and renewed by works of art that engage the viewer and compel one to think about one's self and the world in news ways.
The Museum is also presenting the artist’s current work from his interdisciplinary laboratory, Cittadellarte. Michelangelo Pistoletto: Cittadellarte highlights the intellectual, political, and social dialogues fostered by Cittadellarte, which was founded by the artist in 1998 by in Biella, Italy. The installation plays host to a series of performances, lectures, and workshops to bring the innovative spirit of this artistic center to the Museum and the city of Philadelphia. 
The entire exhibition continues through January 16 and is free with Museum admission.
Photos copyright 2010 by Dan Cirucci.