This casually posed figure is based on a life-size photograph of Gian Enzo Sperone, a gallery owner in Pistoletto's native city of Turin, Italy. The artist transposed the image with oil and pencil onto translucent paper that was then affixed to highly polished stainless steel. With his back to us, the man appears suspended between the physical space of the gallery and its reflection. Although the figure is fixed, his situation is contingent on where the work is placed and the viewer’s chance reflection in it. As such, the work "is available for a continuous happening," Pistoletto has remarked. "The viewer and subject are both in the same situation, neither one can impose his will on the other."

Gallery label from

2008.

Medium Paper, oil, and pencil on polished stainless steel
Dimensions 6' 6 7/8" x 39 3/8" (200.3 x 100 cm)
Credit Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund
Object number 292.1965
Department Painting & Sculpture

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