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There’s an effective, material simplicity to this installation by founding arte povera artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, with its deep swirling folds of chest-high, corrugated cardboard that snake around the Serpentine to create walkways through its galleries. At intervals one encounters objects associated with religious contemplation – a sculpture of Buddha, an Islamic prayer mat, a Christian prayer bench. These are each placed in front of large mirrors so that as we stop to contemplate them we not only see a reflection of ourselves and the work, but ourselves within, and therefore part of, the work.
On paper this may sound a rather clunky metaphor for pondering ideas about man’s progression through life and the relationships between art and religion, among other themes that have been prevalent in Pistoletto’s works since the 1960s. However, as an experience it allows for a far lighter and freer mood than any historical-survey show. And if anything, it’s the religious objects themselves that, in this context, seem rather leaden representatives of their faiths.
Outside the gallery in Kensington Gardens, Pistoletto’s contemplative installation resonates with this year’s pavilion commission, an elegantly minimal structure designed by architect Peter Zumthor that contains a hidden garden of wild flowers and grasses. It would also provide a perfect environment for pondering were it not, as on my visit, packed with chattering visitors. There’s also something odd about hiding a garden within a space that is itself a huge garden, and where one can already find plenty of quiet spots in which to engage with the surroundings. What I left with is the thought that when it comes to spirituality or nature, and perhaps also art, the more one tries to enclose or define it, the more elusive it becomes.