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Lot Essay
"Inside the mirror, there I am, there we are. Where, when?
We are inside the mirror when we are here and when we are there. I can see myself, or perhaps I can't see myself, while you can see me in the mirror. But it's not just us or whoever is in front of us. Nothing escapes the mirror. The great space is in the mirror, time (whole time) is already in the mirror and space has the dimension of time.
The mirror is at the bottom of the well and we can see it, but perhaps it is also under the furniture at home, in the trees, or behind our heads where we can't see it; is it you that looks at me from behind without my even knowing it?
The eyes are mirrors, the mind is the mirror of the eyes and actions are the mirror of the mind. Now that the mirror has come to light from Art we can see inside history, the bright and sparkling history in the thickness of the mirror and the life that Art reflects in this thickness. The Sumerians that came out of the mirror have returned with the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Arabs and the Romans inside the mirror, placed on the golden background of the Byzantines, erased by the iconoclasts and redrawn by the perspective of western progress, truncated in the end by consumed consumerism's mass of dross.
In this mirror the order of Venus crosses the gaze in perfect harmony while the usury of custom dismembers, disintergrates and transforms every image. Conscience perceives the inexorable absolute in existential relativity, the mirror's perpetual motion that comes without pose to its own surface"
(M. Pistoletto, 'Inside the Mirror' 1987, reproduced in Michelangelo Pistoletto exh. cat., MACBA, Barcelona 2000, p. 30).
We are inside the mirror when we are here and when we are there. I can see myself, or perhaps I can't see myself, while you can see me in the mirror. But it's not just us or whoever is in front of us. Nothing escapes the mirror. The great space is in the mirror, time (whole time) is already in the mirror and space has the dimension of time.
The mirror is at the bottom of the well and we can see it, but perhaps it is also under the furniture at home, in the trees, or behind our heads where we can't see it; is it you that looks at me from behind without my even knowing it?
The eyes are mirrors, the mind is the mirror of the eyes and actions are the mirror of the mind. Now that the mirror has come to light from Art we can see inside history, the bright and sparkling history in the thickness of the mirror and the life that Art reflects in this thickness. The Sumerians that came out of the mirror have returned with the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Arabs and the Romans inside the mirror, placed on the golden background of the Byzantines, erased by the iconoclasts and redrawn by the perspective of western progress, truncated in the end by consumed consumerism's mass of dross.
In this mirror the order of Venus crosses the gaze in perfect harmony while the usury of custom dismembers, disintergrates and transforms every image. Conscience perceives the inexorable absolute in existential relativity, the mirror's perpetual motion that comes without pose to its own surface"
(M. Pistoletto, 'Inside the Mirror' 1987, reproduced in Michelangelo Pistoletto exh. cat., MACBA, Barcelona 2000, p. 30).