Castello di Ama

[…] At the entrance to the ancient cellar of the Castello di Ama, we see, at the bottom of a staircase, a very tall trunk rising, in the diameter of which an angled mirror with multiple refractions has been inserted in a fissure, almost like a wound.

Michelangelo Pistoletto presents us again, in a synthetic and powerful image, a work within the dialectic of unity and division of the mirror. The body of the tree collects within it the infinite mirror of thought.

On the outside the cortex is opaque, while on the inside the light of the mind reigns. The trunk is uniqueness, matter, the interior is multiplicity and the labyrinthine reflection of thought. Just as on the outside the trunk multiplies in the forest, so on the inside the mirror multiplies in repeated refraction, to the point of hosting the infinite.

The internal part is also where time marks and draws the age of the tree in concentric circles. With this iconic, simple and profound image, Pistoletto reminds us that thought is always inside the physicality of the body. […]

Laura Cherubini