A dialogue between Michelangelo Pistoletto and Don Umberto Bordoni

A dialogue between Michelangelo Pistoletto and Don Umberto Bordoni

moderated by Giorgio Verzotti

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023, 5 pm, at BUILDING

Reservation required.

RSVP: events@building-gallery.com or +39 02 89094995

On the occasion of the exhibition Il Numinoso (27 October 2022 – 28 January 2023) BUILDING hosts a dialogue between the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and Don Umberto Bordoni, moderated by the curator Giorgio Verzotti. Starting from the themes that the exhibition at BUILDING deals with, the dialogue will address the eternal and changing relationship between art and religion, winding through different perspectives and points of view.
A believer and a layman converse with each other: for one, a priest, the existence of God is a certainty, for the other, an artist, it is a possibility. On what terrain can these two different visions of the world meet? Perhaps in the field of art, understood as that beauty which, artists say, will save us?

Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in Biella in 1933. In 1962 he created the Mirror Paintings, with which he quickly achieved international recognition. He is considered one of the forerunners and protagonists of Arte Povera with his Minus Objects (1965-1966) and Venus of Rags (1967). Starting in 1967, outside the traditional exhibition spaces, he created actions that constitute the first manifestations of that “creative collaboration” that he would develop over the following decades, bringing together artists from different disciplines and increasingly broader sectors of society. In the 1990s he founded Cittadellarte in Biella, placing art in relation to the various areas of society in order to inspire and produce a responsible transformation of society. He has received countless international awards, including the 2003 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement from the Venice Biennale and the 2007 Wolf Foundation Prize in the Arts “for his consistently creative career as an artist, educator and enabler, whose tireless intelligence has given origin of prescient art forms that contribute to a new understanding of the world”. In 2017, was published Hominitheism and demopraxy. Manifesto for a regeneration of society, edited by Chiarelettere, and in 2022 his latest book The Formula of Creation was published by Cittadellarte Edizioni. Works by him are present in major contemporary art museums.

Don Umberto Bordoni, a priest of the Diocesi of Milan, obtained a bachelor’s degree in theology at the Theological Faculty of Northern Italy and a master’s degree in history and theory of the arts at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He coordinated the project for the creation of the Ambrosian Evangeliary (2011), organizing the international conference A contemporary evangeliary for the Churches in Italy (Milan, Varese, 2010), curated the exhibition Beauty in the Word at Palazzo Reale (Milan, 2011) and some scientific publications such as Il Nuovo Evangeliario Ambrosiano and Ancient Masterpieces, Cinisello Balsamo, Silvana, 2011. He curated the exhibition and the catalogue Nicola De Maria. Coloris Gaudium at the Galleria San Fedele (Milan, 2015). He is currently responsible for the Artistic Commissioning of the Diocesi of Milan, director of the Foundation of Worship “Scuola Beato Angelico” of Milan, director of the magazine “Arte Cristiana”, member of the Scientific Committee of the Itinerary of Contemporary Churches of Milan, Parochial Vicar in Sant’Andrea in Milan.