Michelangelo Pistoletto (born June 23rd 1933) was from the very beginning interested in the human figure. Like Bacon, he attempted to explore in his paintings, the "objective reality" through a particular image. His personal style was vaguely "pop": where everyday and urban images predominated, represented pictorially, like a reflection in the mirror, painted on tissue-paper and applied on polished stainless steel.

From 1964 onwards, he introduced the use of photography applied on transparent plexiglass. Towards the end of the same decade, his work took on a more conceptual form in a series of objects created with raw materials.

In 1967, he created his famous Venere degli Stracci which he exhibited for the first time in 1968, in Turin at the Deposito d'Arte Presente. He returned to the theme of "mirror images" in graphic reproduction. He wrote L'Uomo nero il lato insopporttabille . During the 1960s he created, among other paintings, Performances and during the 1980s poorist figurations. At times, he exhibited with Pisani. In 1970 he had a major solo exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice.

During the 1980's he created numerous sculptures with expanded polyurethane. Between June and October of 1990, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome organised a great retrospective of his work. He participated at the Documenta X in Kassel in 1997 and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His more recent exhibitions were held at the Ludwig Museum in Vienna in 1995 and in Munich in 1996.

He lives and works in Turin.