Michelangelo Pistoletto and Third Paradise at SSE

Title: Third Paradise (Terzo Paradiso)
Artist: Michelangelo Pistoletto
Dates: November 13–15, 2024
Materials: Books from SSE’s Literary Agenda reading project
Location: The atrium, Stockholm School of Economics
Created with: Students from the SSE Art Division

Michelangelo Pistoletto visited the Stockholm School of Economics as part of The Bureau of Poetry conference. During his visit, he participated in a talk and a performance developed in collaboration with students from the Art Division.

Together, Pistoletto and the students created Third Paradise using books from the Literary Agenda, SSE’s large-scale reading project. The Literary Agenda aims to encourage self-reflection, empathy, and cultural literacy among students.

The work was created in the atrium of SSE’s main building and remained there as a temporary installation from November 13 to November 15, 2024.

Third Paradise (Terzo Paradiso) is a long-term artistic and philosophical project that Pistoletto began in 2003. It is conceived as a collective work that invites people to imagine and help create a future in which humanity can live together responsibly.

Its symbol is a reconfiguration of the mathematical infinity sign, formed from three consecutive circles. It represents the relationship between nature and artifice and the possibility of finding a new balance between them.

Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in Biella, Italy, in 1933. He is a contemporary artist, painter, and sculptor, and is widely recognized as a founding figure of the Arte Povera movement.

Between 1947 and 1958, Pistoletto worked with his father in Turin as a painting restorer. During the 1950s and 1960s, he began creating figurative paintings and self-portraits. He later developed life-size, photo-silkscreened images of people on reflective steel.

These mirrored works incorporate their surroundings and viewers into the artwork, questioning the nature of reality and representation. Reflective surfaces have remained an important feature throughout Pistoletto’s career.

During the 1960s, he also began working with performance. This interest later expanded to include film, video, and theatre. His collaborative “actions” sought to connect art with everyday life and took place in his studio, schools, theatres, public institutions, and the streets of Turin and other cities.

In 1974, Pistoletto passed a ski instructor’s examination and spent much of his time in the mountain town of San Sicario.

Between 1966 and 2011, he participated in the Venice Biennale twelve times. He also participated in Documenta in Kassel four times between 1968 and 1997.

In 1996, Pistoletto founded Cittadellarte–Fondazione Pistoletto in a former textile factory near Biella. Conceived as both a centre and a workshop, it aims to bring art into different areas of society and inspire responsible social change.

His engagement with social questions and symbolism contributed to the development of Third Paradise and its reimagined infinity symbol. Pistoletto lives and works in Biella and Turin.