A mound of second-hand clothes sits on the floor of the new Ravizza Brownfield Gallery in Chinatown, divided into separate piles by a two-sided mirror. One pile is white, the other multicolored. Looking into one side of the mirror creates the illusion that there’s a whole pile of colored clothes. From the other side, a pile of only white clothes.
ON EXHIBIT: MICHAELANGELO PISTOLETTO
Presented by the Ravizza Brownfield Gallery
>> Where: Ravizza Brownfield Gallery, 1109 Nuuanu Ave.
>> When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, through May 31
>> Info: 724-6877, ravizzabrownfield.com
The work, titled “Senza titolo (Metamorfosi),” is a 1976 installation by famed Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, a key figure in the Arte Povera, or poor art, movement that started in Italy in the 1960s, using commonplace materials as a statement against modernism and technology.
Pistoletto, 83, is the featured solo artist for the Ravizza Brownfield Gallery’s debut in Honolulu. Shari Brownfield and art collector Allegra Ravizza opened the gallery last month in the former Fresh Cafe space on Nuuanu Avenue with the goal of bringing internationally renowned artists to Hawaii.
“We think there’s an energy (here) and we love this idea of how there’s a history in Chinatown,” Brownfield said of the location. “There’s character and charm.”
Each artist exhibiting at the gallery will be asked to create a work related to Hawaii.
For the local gallery, Pistoletto customized his “Terzo Paradiso (Third Paradise),” a reconfiguring of the mathematical infinity sign into three contiguous circles. The artist has said the two opposite circles signify nature and artifice, while the middle one joins the two and represents “the generative womb of a new humanity.”
“Terzo Paradiso” has been reimagined by the artist in a variety of settings around the globe, each installation unique.
Here, he translated the words “love difference” from another of his works into 12 languages spoken in Hawaii, including Hawaiian, Japanese and Maori, and used them to outline the three-circle symbol on the wall.
The letters are in a range of colors that represent the islands’ sun, sky, sea and nature.
Native Hawaiian scholar Puakea Nogelmeier even translated the catalog’s introduction into Hawaiian. The symbol also pays homage to Polynesian tattoo culture, and for fun, a temporary tattoo was created for gallery visitors.
Other pieces on display include Pistoletto’s broken mirror paintings, including “Two Less Once Colored,” which allows the viewer to interact with the pieces through playful reflections. Pistoletto completed a special mirror piece just for Hawaii that celebrates its endemic and endangered plants.
