«The artist's mission, today, is that of putting aesthetics in connection with ethics, the form with the content. Wehad a great aesthetic revolution in the twentieth century. Now, we need to move on to an ethical evolution. This means that art is no longer locked within itself, but opens up to the world, brining freedom combined with a new dimension, that of responsibility».

Interviewed at the event  Vino x Arte = Acqua (Wine x Art = Water), Michelangelo Pistoletto, one of the undisputed protagonists of the Italian art scene, explained the meaning and assumptions of what he defines  “a new authority and a new responsibility”, which derive directly from unprecedented ability of contemporary art to not only work on concrete objects, but also on that extremely delicate matter that is society.

Within the society, art, which is finally free from the powers of the past, meets people and their active desire to participate, and in turn, becomes a driving force for freedom, responsibility, and democracy. Together with this renewed social mission, Pistoletto thus acknowledges a clear-cut role of the artist: that of redefining the world and, along with it, the forms of shared social life.

Due to this attention to the ethical and social dimensions, Pistoletto is currently the only Italian included in the prestigious  Cultural Committee  of the project “A New Narrative for Europe”, along with other high-profile personalities such as Architect Rem Koolhaas and the Director of the Edinburgh Festival, Jonathan Mills.