What happens when two artists speaking different languages meet in a space that amplifies their resonances? Materials speak, silences transform into visions, art becomes a field of listening. This is what happens in Arles, in the spaces of the Hôtel Vernon—home of the Lee Ufan Foundation—where A Conversation Piece, an exhibition that brings together the works of Michelangelo Pistoletto and Lee Ufan, has opened.

The exhibition unfolds along a unique path, involving both the Foundation's permanent collections and site-specific installations. It unfolds across three levels, aiming to explore the works' relationship with space and the viewer. Pistoletto's mirrored surfaces interact with Lee Ufan's stones, metals, and essential compositions. In one of the rooms, for example, a large mirror reflects the reflected image of a "Relatum" sculpture, transforming the space into a threshold between presence and representation. The works observe each other, approach each other, and respond to each other, creating a balance that is not only aesthetic but also perceptual.

The heart of the exhibition is the encounter between the two artists, which goes beyond a formal comparison, becoming a true exercise in listening between similar poetics. Michelangelo Pistoletto and Lee Ufan interrogate the relationship between object and space, between Eastern and Western culture, between gesture and material, allowing the visitor to complete the work with their presence. It is in this relational field that their practices converge: not in standardization, but in the coexistence of differences.

A Conversation Piece will be officially presented to the public today, July 9th, at 5:00 PM with a vernissage featuring the Biella-born master. Yesterday, July 8th, at 5:30 PM, a public meeting between the two artists was held at the Théâtre d'Arles, moderated by Emma Lavigne, director of the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain.

In this silent yet powerful dialogue, we find the principles that have always inspired Cittadellarte's work. Just as this exhibition builds a bridge between two geographically and culturally distant visions, the Fondazione Pistoletto's projects are also grounded in art as a tool for connection, transformation, and collective responsibility. The meeting between the two masters is therefore an invitation to think of art as a place of listening, of the possible, and of sharing.

In-depth note

Lee Ufan was born in 1936 in Haman, South Korea. After studying philosophy in Japan, he developed an international artistic career that led him to found the Mono-Ha movement, literally "school of things," in the late 1960s. Mono-Ha is based on the idea that the work should not transform natural or industrial materials, but simply juxtapose them, revealing their interactions and relationship with the surrounding space. It is a contemplative practice that values expectation, emptiness, and minimal presence. This vision finds a profound echo in the work of Michelangelo Pistoletto, whose mirrored surfaces have for decades invited the viewer to become an active participant in the work. Both masters rejected the centrality of the object and opened artistic practice to relationships, making perception and shared experience the true fulcrum of creation. On display in Arles, this dialogue becomes concrete, restoring art to its most universal value: the ability to generate encounter.