Cairo – A monumental version of Third Paradise, the best-known work by Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto, was unveiled to the public onTuesday (11) in the sand under the great pyramids of Giza outside Cairo as part of the contemporary art festival Forever is Now.
For this new version of the emblematic installation—which has already been exhibited more than two thousand times around the world—the 92-year-old artist, an icon of the Arte Povera movement, used limestone blocks, the same stone used in the pharaohs’ time to build the pyramids.
A three-meter-tall obelisk with walls covered in metallic mirrors completes the 28-meter-long artwork, which forms the infinity symbol (∞) on the sands of Giza.
Franco Beninese artist King Houndekpinkou, in turn, presents a column made up of ceramic fragments recovered from a manufacturing plant in Cairo.
“It’s an incredible opportunity to converse with 4,500 years — or even more — of history,” he told AFP beside his work White Totem of Light.
South Korean artist Jongkyu Park used the dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Khufu to create the geometric structures of his installation Code of Eternity, specially conceived for Egypt.
A thousand small cylindrical acrylic mirrors planted in the sand form a Morse code poem that imagines a dialogue between Tangun, the legendary founder of the first Korean kingdom, and the Egyptian pharaoh.
Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, better known as “Vhils,” collected doors in Cairo and elsewhere in the world for his installation, designed to evoke the archaeological process.
Six other artists, including Turkey’s Mert Ege Kose, Lebanon’s Nadim Karam, Brazil’s Ana Ferrari, Egypt’s Salha Al-Masry and the Russian collective “Recycle Group”, are also taking part.
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