Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist.

His work mainly deals with the subject matter of reflection (especially in his Mirror Paintings) and the unification of art and everyday life in terms of a Gesamtkunstwerk.

In the later sixties he began bringing together rags with casts of omnipresent classical statuary of Italy to break down the hierarchies of "art" and common things.

In his 1967 Muretto di stracci (Rag Wall) Pistoletto makes an exotic and opulent tapestry wrapping common bricks in discarded scraps of fabric.

In 1974, he nearly completely withdrew from the art scene: he took an exam as a skiing instructor and spent most of his time in the mountains of San Sicario.

In 1996, he founded the art city Cittadelarte – Fondazione Pistoletto in an abandoned textile factory near Biella, as a centre and "laboratory", supporting and researching creative resources, and producing innovative ideas and possibilities.

The Cittadelarte is divided into different Uffici/Offices ( work, education, communications, art, nutrition, politics, spirituality, and economics), which exchange with each other within an intermedial network.

[4] The printed subjects show a broad spectrum of motives: for example self-portraits, pictures from gallery visitors or objects of daily life.

"[7] The previous quote enlightens the reader on Pistoletto's attempt to, in 1964 at the Galleria Sperone, work on bringing the meaning of the mirror out into the inhabited space surrounding it.

[8] Sometimes the paintings on the mirrors are portraits of Pistoletto's friends, patrons and/or self-portraits: this is true for the artist's recent entirely mirrored-hall at the Ristorante del Cambio, Piazza Carignano, Turin.

[9] Michelangelo Pistoletto's art was prominently featured in major international exhibitions, including Documenta 7 and 9 in Kassel (1982 and 1992), as well as the Venice Biennales of 1984, 1986, and 1993.