Michelangelo Pistoletto launches Three Mirrors with CIRCA, a global public artwork transforming city screens into a call for “Preventive Peace” and civic action.
Michelangelo Pistoletto is taking art out of the gallery and into the streets—literally. From 1st April 2026, a new moving-image work titled Three Mirrors unfolds across a global network of public screens, transforming some of the world’s most visible urban sites into platforms for reflection, responsibility and what the artist calls “Preventive Peace.”
Presented by CIRCA in partnership with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and curated by Josef O’Connor, the year-long collaboration aligns with a stark reality: the UN’s 2026 humanitarian appeal aims to reach 87 million people affected by crisis worldwide. Against this backdrop, Pistoletto’s project positions art not as commentary, but as a form of civic action.
Broadcast daily at 20:26 (local time) on screens from London’s Piccadilly Lights to Milan, Rome, Los Angeles, Accra, Casablanca, Hong Kong and Seoul, Three Mirrors operates as what might be described as a “lecture without walls.” Filmed at Cittadellarte—the artist’s long-running laboratory for social transformation—the work unfolds as a triptych, each part extending Pistoletto’s enduring concept of the Third Paradise.
Michelangelo Pistoletto, nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, said,
“With my Mirror Paintings, the image is no longer closed within the artwork. It opens itself to reality and to the present moment. Through my collaboration with CIRCA, this reflection becomes collective: the city, its inhabitants and the passing of time enter the work, transforming the mirror into a shared space of
awareness and responsibility”.
The mirror, long central to his practice, becomes here a civic surface. Not simply reflective, but relational—collapsing viewer, image and idea into a shared field. For Pistoletto, this is not symbolic gesture but structural thinking: a way of embedding art directly into the conditions of contemporary life.
At 92, the artist shows no interest in retrospection. Instead, this project reads as a proposition—urgent, instructional, and outward-facing. “The more freedom we claim, the more responsibility we carry,” he states. “Peace does not arrive by chance. It has to be produced.”
That production takes form through three interconnected works. Third Paradise introduces the now-iconic symbol: two opposing circles bridged by a third, proposing equilibrium rather than conflict. Formula of Creation extends this into a relational logic—1+1=3—where encounter generates something new. Statodellarte pushes further still, framing creativity as a civic condition, where art becomes inseparable from participation in society.
Together, they mark a shift from representation to activation—images not to be consumed, but entered.
The project expands beyond the screen. On 24 April, during Salone del Mobile, the public is invited to gather in Piazza del Duomo to collectively recreate the Third Paradise symbol—a moment of shared reflection that turns spectators into participants.
Alongside this, the collaboration extends into a series of twelve hand-signed mirrored editions—collectable works that translate Pistoletto’s philosophy into physical form. More than objects, they function as active propositions: 20% of net proceeds will support CIRCA and the Pistoletto Cittadellarte Foundation’s public and educational programmes, including contributions to the United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). Here, collecting becomes a form of participation, linking private ownership to public impact.
What emerges is a project that moves fluidly between formats—screen, square, object, action—while maintaining a consistent core: art as shared responsibility. In an era defined by climate crisis, technological acceleration and geopolitical instability, Pistoletto’s message is disarmingly direct.
Balance is not given. It is made.
And here, across cities, screens and bodies, it is being made in real time.
The collaboration is presented in partnership with OCHA at a pivotal moment. Earlier this year, the United Nations announced a campaign to save 87 million people facing the most life-threatening conditions worldwide, giving governments 87 days to mobilise funding and diplomatic action.
Presented across major public screens worldwide, CIRCA enters this next phase as a cultural amplification of that call. By transforming some of the world’s most visible urban spaces into sites of
collective action and reflection, the project with Michelangelo Pistoletto reinforces the urgency of
energetic peacemaking and global solidarity over indifference.
Tom Fletcher, United Nations Relief Chief, said,
“2026 must be the year the world chooses solidarity over indifference – peace over war. The lives of 87 million people hang in the balance. Art can challenge complacency and remind us of our shared responsibility. That is why partnerships like this one with Michelangelo Pistoletto and CIRCA matter. At a time of brutal conflicts and shrinking resources, this collaboration is a call to conscience.”
Josef O’Connor, Founder and Artistic Director of CIRCA, said,
“This is the most ambitious collaboration CIRCA has undertaken. Working with Michelangelo Pistoletto and Cittadellarte across an entire year, in partnership with the United Nations, allows us to articulate a single proposition. Art as a shared responsibility. Art as a living idea. Art as an active contribution to peace.”
Alongside the public presentation of Three Mirrors, CIRCA and Pistoletto Cittadellarte Foundation will
release a series of twelve new mirrored works titled Preventive Peace Flags, conceived as a distributed
extension of the project’s central ideas. Centred on the Third Paradise symbol, the twelve variations are screen printed on polished stainless steel mirror and hand signed by the artist, with each flag featuring two distinct colours at either end of the iconic trinamic form. These colours meet within the central circle, generating a third colour at its core, making visible Pistoletto’s long held formula: 1+1=3More than editions, the flags operate as portable civic devices. Their reflective surface incorporates the
viewer and surrounding environment, extending the logic of the Mirror Paintings into everyday space. In
doing so, they transform a symbol of balance into a shared act of participation.
“The Third Paradise proposes that apparent opposites do not cancel one another. They create a new
balanced condition,”
Pistoletto says.
“In these flags, the mirror makes each person part of that equation, and therefore part of the responsibility it carries.”
20% of net proceeds will be allocated across CIRCA and The Pistoletto Cittadellarte Foundation’s public and educational programmes, including a donation to the United Nations Global Emergency Response Fund (CERF).
Full Schedule: circa.art
About the artist
Michelangelo Pistoletto was born in Biella in 1933. He began exhibiting in 1955 and in 1960, held his first solo show at Galatea Gallery in Turin. His initial pictorial production is characterised by research on self-portraiture. Between 1961 and 1962, he began making his Mirror Paintings, with which he quickly achieved international recognition and success. Between 1965 and 1966, he created a group of works entitled Oggetti in meno (Minus Objects), considered basic for the birth of Arte Povera, an artistic movement of which Pistoletto was an animator and protagonist. Starting in 1967, he produced actions outside traditional exhibition spaces that represented the first manifestations of the “creative collaboration” that Pistoletto would develop over the following decades, bringing together artists from different disciplines and increasingly broad sectors of society. In the early 1980s, he created a series of sculptures in rigid polyurethane, later reproduced in marble. From 1985 to 1989, he created the series of “dark volumes” called Art of Squalor. In the 1990s, he taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and, with Progetto Arte and the creation in Biella of Cittadellarte-Fondazione Pistoletto, he put art in relation to the different spheres of the social fabric in order to inspire and produce a responsible transformation of society. In 2003, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the Venice Biennale.
In 2003, he began work on the Third Paradise, which over the following decades would become a large-scale collective and participatory work. In 2007, he received the Wolf Foundation Prize in Arts “for his constantly creative career as an artist, educator and activist, whose tireless intelligence has given rise to premonitory art forms that contribute to a new understanding of the world.”
Among his most recent books are: The Third Paradise (2010), Hominitheism and Demopraxy. Manifesto for a regeneration of society (2017), The formula of creation (2022), in which he retraces the fundamental steps and evolution of his entire artistic career and theoretical reflection, Spirituality (with Antonio Spadaro) and God by Chance. A View on the Unknown (with Ruggero Poi), both published in 2025. Over the course of his long career, he has received countless international prizes and awards and participated thirteen times in the Venice Biennale. His works are in the permanent collections of major contemporary art museums. pistoletto.it
About
Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte represents a new model of artistic and cultural institution that places art in direct dialogue with different sectors of society. It is a space where ideas and projects meet, combining creativity and entrepreneurship, education and production, ecology and architecture, politics and spirituality. A multifaceted and constantly evolving entity, Cittadellarte is committed to fostering civilization by guiding the necessary and urgent social change at both local and global levels. Cittadellarte is the cradle of the Terzo Paradiso project, a place where one can experience and
experiment with a way of life inspired by this vision. cittadellarte.it
Millions of lives are at stake because of conflicts, violence and disasters. When crises hit – no matter the danger, no matter the cost – United Nations OCHA is there. OCHA unites the world to help people in crisis. When emergencies strike, it steps in to save lives and support communities. They get aid where it is needed, support relief efforts, share vital information, and speak up for affected communities. With offices in over 50 countries, they are present in crisis-affected regions – ready to act quickly with expert teams and provide help to those in need. (crisisrelief.un.org)
