The artist, one of the greatest living Italian artists, together with Achille Bonito Oliva, curator of the project, and Marcello Barbanera, professor of classical archaeology at La Sapienza University in Rome, retrace in a long and complex reflection, the historical significance of the apple, spanning from Greek mythology to the new era, while also touching on biblical tradition and the fairy tale universe.
Michelangelo Pistoletto. Terzo Paradiso. La Mela Reintegrata (“Michelangelo Pistoletto. The Third Paradise. The Reinstated Apple”) is a closed three party talk. The artist, one of the greatest living Italian masters, together with Achille Bonito Oliva, curator of the project, and Marcello Barbanera, professor of classical archaeology at La Sapienza University in Rome, retrace in a long and complex reflection, the historical significance of the apple, spanning from Greek mythology to the new era, while also touching on biblical tradition and the fairy tale universe. The Reinstated Apple in Pistoletto’s representation, thus becomes a symbol – as the work of the Third Heaven heralded – of a possibly different future, in which the gap between the artificial and natural world, now sewn together through art, gives rise to a new planetary balance. This volume is published on the occasion of the installation of The Reinstated Apple at the Baths of Caracalla. “The work is untainted by any attempt at contamination by avant-garde thought, indeed it affirms its own classicism, celebrating the ability of art to design the past, and bringing the courtly materials of art history into our presence. The Baths of Caracalla, occupy a space in great Roman history and, in the magnitude of their dimension, offer a bridge with the society of our time”, explains Achille Bonito Oliva. The text concludes with a series of photographs dedicated to the artist’s work together with a selection of images aimed at tracing the representation of this famous fruit in the history of art.