From 3 February to 3 June 2026, Palazzo Boncompagni in Bologna presents the exhibition “Michelangelo Pistoletto. Dalla Cittadellarte allo Statodellarte” (“Michelangelo Pistoletto. From Cittadellarte to Statodellarte”), curated by Silvia Evangelisti.

The exhibition project marks a new chapter in the dialogue between Palazzo Boncompagni and Michelangelo Pistoletto, initiated in 2021 with the exhibition “Gregorio XIII e Michelangelo Pistoletto. Dal Rinascimento alla rinascita” (“Gregory XIII and Michelangelo Pistoletto. From the Renaissance to Rebirth”(, and renewed today through a journey across some of the artist’s most significant works, from 1967 to the present.

The exhibition , curated by Silvia Evangelisti, places Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte at its core, as the origin, method, and driving force of a vision of art understood as a social, political, and civic practice.

The exhibition recounts more than sixty years of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s artistic research, while above all making visible the transition from art as an individual gesture to art as a collective device for transformation, developed since the founding of Cittadellarte in 1994. Conceived as a permanent laboratory, Cittadellarte brings together art, architecture, economy, fashion, politics, spirituality, nourishment, education, and the environment, experimenting with operational models capable of concretely impacting reality.

The symbolic and operational heart of the project is the return to Bologna, after twenty years, of the Love Difference Table, a manifesto-work created within Cittadellarte and a symbol of the Love Difference movement – an Artistic Movement for InterMediterranean Politics. Placed at the center of the Papal Audience Hall, the Table is not presented as an object to be contemplated, but as an active space for encounter, dialogue, and exchange, in line with Fondazione Pistoletto’s vision of art as relationship.

Around the Table, a Public Program will develop, directly reflecting Cittadellarte’s practices, entitled “Conversations around the Love Difference Table”, curated by Chiara Belliti. The program includes three meetings, each structured as a roundtable conversation dedicated to the Statodellarte of specific fields of reflection:
• “Art, Spirituality and Religion”
• “Ethics, Politics and Artificial Intelligence”
• “Sustainable Fashion as Cultural and Social Responsibility”, dedicated to the relationship between creativity, economy, and environment.

In the rooms of the Boncompagnina, models, videos, and archival materials recount the birth and evolution of Cittadellarte as a platform for experimentation and as an alternative organizational model capable of transforming creativity into a civic tool. From this experience emerges the concept of Statodellarte, understood as a collective work in continuous evolution and as a possible model of coexistence.

“Statodellarte is a collective artwork in perpetual evolution and a new form of civic-political organization,” states Paolo Naldini, Director of Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte. “Founded on the Art of Demopraxy and on the Formula of Creation, or Third Paradise, Statodellarte is an open, borderless model that places art at the service of shared responsibility, sustainability, and peaceful coexistence, inviting every individual to act for the reconciliation between humanity and the planet.”

The Third Paradise (1+1=3), permanently present at Palazzo Boncompagni, constitutes the symbolic core of the entire project. Developed from the mathematical symbol of infinity, the emblem of the Third Paradise is composed of three circles and represents the balance between nature and artifice, forming the basis of a vision that recognizes creativity as a shared ethical and social responsibility.

With “Michelangelo Pistoletto. Dalla Cittadellarte allo Statodellarte”, the Bologna exhibition thus takes shape not only as a retrospective, but as a temporary device of Cittadellarte, capable of activating relationships, generating debate, and making art a living tool for transforming the present.