Art International (Portrait of Maximilian von Stein)

Pistoletto’s quadri specchianti (mirror paintings) represent an effort to go beyond the traditional practice of painting. The artist places his images on highly polished steel panels, purchased at local industrial supply stores, in an attempt to merge the real and virtual. In these works, viewers see their own reflections registered alongside Pistoletto’s quasi-photographic static figures that the artist collaged on the panel. Viewers thus find themselves crossing into the conventional space of figuration.

Art International (Ritratto di Maximilian von Stein) depicts the son of the visionary gallerist Margherita Stein reading Art International, one of the most influential international art magazines of the 1960s. The piece shows the technique that the artist perfected in the 1960s to achieve objectivity in his quasi-photographic representations. Pistoletto began by selecting the figure from a photograph, enlarging it to life-size, and tracing its outline from the projected enlargement. He then cut out and hand- painted the figure after he affixed the tissue paper to the steel surface.