CIRCA

CIRCA CIRCA is an art and culture platform with purpose.

14/06/2026

“One thing we cannot do without is belief. How do you believe? In what do you believe?”

For Michelangelo Pistoletto, art has never been separate from life. Across a career spanning more than seven decades, he has used art as a way of understanding how the world works and how it might be changed.

Known for his iconic Mirror Paintings, which place the viewer inside the artwork itself, Pistoletto has long challenged the idea that art is something to be observed from a distance. Instead, he sees it as a space where people, ideas and realities meet. A place where new possibilities can emerge.

This thinking led him to develop what he calls the Formula of Creation: 1 + 1 = 3. The equation suggests that when two people, ideas or forces come together, they create a third element that did not exist before. For Pistoletto, this principle extends far beyond art. It offers a way of understanding relationships, communities, politics, science and even our place within the wider universe.

In this reading from The Formula of Creation, Pistoletto reflects on belief as a creative act. Not blind faith, but the human capacity to imagine, build and transform. His question is both simple and profound. How do you believe, and in what do you believe?

The answer, he suggests, shapes the world we create together.

13/06/2026

“What an artist is trying to do for people is bring them closer to something, because of course art is about sharing. You wouldn’t be an artist unless you wanted to share an experience, a thought.” - David Hockney

Emerging from Britain’s post-war art scene in the early 1960s, Hockney quickly established himself as a defining voice in contemporary art. From the swimming pools of Los Angeles and double portraits of friends and family to vast landscapes of Yorkshire and Normandy, his work was characterised by a restless curiosity and a continual willingness to experiment. Throughout his career, he embraced new technologies and methods of making, becoming one of the first major artists to fully integrate photography, video and digital drawing into an established artistic practice.

Hockney’s relationship with CIRCA reflected his lifelong commitment to bringing art into public life. In 2021, he collaborated with CIRCA on Remember That You Cannot Look At The Sun Or Death For Very Long, a landmark public commission curated by Josef O’Connor that united public screens across London, New York, Los Angeles, Seoul and Tokyo in a shared global broadcast. Created from a sequence of iPad drawings made in Normandy during the COVID-19 pandemic, the animated sunrise transformed some of the world’s most iconic advertising screens into a collective moment of hope and reflection, connecting audiences across multiple continents through a single artwork.

Video: Remember That You Cannot Look At The Sun Or Death For Very Long presented in Times Square New York in collaboration with

Rest in peace, David Hockney.In May 2021, CIRCA collaborated with Hockney to share a simple message with the world:Remem...
12/06/2026

Rest in peace, David Hockney.

In May 2021, CIRCA collaborated with Hockney to share a simple message with the world:

Remember You Cannot Look at the Sun or Death for Very Long.

Today, those words feel especially poignant.

Thank you, David 🌞

06/06/2026

Michelangelo Pistoletto performs one of his mirror lectures for Three Mirrors, a new trilogy of films created for CIRCA.

Drawing directly onto polished steel, Pistoletto transforms the reflective surface into a space for collective thought. What begins as a simple gesture unfolds into three interconnected propositions: Third Paradise, Formula of Creation and Statodellarte.

In Third Paradise, the artist reimagines the infinity symbol, introducing a third circle between two opposing forces. In Formula of Creation, he develops his enduring proposition that 1+1=3, where the encounter between two elements generates a third. Finally, in Statodellarte, creativity expands beyond the individual and into public life, proposing art as a shared civic responsibility.

Across all three films, the mirror remains constant. Reflecting both artist and audience, it invites us to see ourselves not as spectators, but as participants in the world being imagined.

Link in bio.

For centuries, mirrors have been used by artists to question how we see ourselves and the world around us. But in an age...
26/05/2026

For centuries, mirrors have been used by artists to question how we see ourselves and the world around us. But in an age shaped by screens, surveillance systems and perpetual self documentation, reflection has taken on an entirely new meaning.

Long before social media transformed self representation into a global industry, ’s Mirror Paintings anticipated a world in which image, spectatorship and identity would become inseparable.

These ideas sit at the centre of Three Mirrors, Pistoletto’s new CIRCA commission exploring reflection not simply as an object, but as one of the defining conditions of contemporary life.

Broadcasting globally until 30 June, 2026. Link in bio to find a screen near you or to watch the films online.

22/05/2026

Every evening at 20:26, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s new CIRCA commission, Three Mirrors, appears above Causeway Bay on the largest screen in Hong Kong.

The film forms the first chapter of a new trilogy of public lectures by Pistoletto, filmed at Cittadellarte in Biella and centred around his concept of The Third Paradise, a symbol bringing together opposing forces to imagine a more balanced relationship between humanity, technology and nature.

For decades, Pistoletto has used the mirror to pull the public directly into the artwork itself. “The observer is not outside the work, but inside it,” he has said. Nothing is fixed. The image only exists once people enter it.

Now those ideas unfold nightly within one of the most intense commercial environments in the world. Broadcasting every night at 20:26 local time until 30 June 2026 at SOGO HK, Causeway Bay.

With thanks to

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Three Mirrors marks the beginning of a year long collaboration between the artist, CIRCA and t...
21/05/2026

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Three Mirrors marks the beginning of a year long collaboration between the artist, CIRCA and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Filmed at in Biella, the trilogy brings together three reflections - Third Paradise, Formula of Creation and Statodellarte - each revisiting ideas that have shaped Pistoletto’s practice for more than six decades. Moving between philosophy, pedagogy and public transmission, the works position the mirror not simply as reflective surface, but as a civic space through which questions of coexistence, participation and collective responsibility are returned back onto society itself.

Presented on public screens every evening at 20:26 until 30 June in London, Milan, Rome, Seoul, Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, the project emerges at a moment marked by war, technological acceleration and increasing social fragmentation. Developed in partnership with OCHA during a year in which the United Nations warned that 87 million people face life threatening humanitarian conditions globally, Three Mirrors approaches peace not as abstraction, but as something actively produced through awareness, imagination and shared responsibility.

Link in bio.

01/05/2026

Across Three Mirrors, the renewed urgency of ’s thinking unfolds as a visionary reflection on our time, where the symbol of The Third Paradise calls for a new balance between nature and artificiality in an era shaped by climate crisis and artificial intelligence:

🪞 ‘Third Paradise’ establishes the symbolic framework. Two opposing circles are joined by a third central space, proposing a passage toward a new stage of humanity in which apparent opposites do not cancel one another but generate equilibrium.

🪞 ‘Formula of Creation’ articulates the generative principle within that symbol: 1+1=3. From the meeting of two forces emerges a third element. The encounter between “I” and “You” produces “We,” transforming duality into relationship and shared responsibility.

🪞 ‘Statodellarte’ extends this logic into civic life, proposing creativity as a form of citizenship in which freedom is inseparable from responsibility and art becomes an active condition of society.

_
Camera 1: Luca Gaddini
Camera 2: Alessandra Eusebio
Editor: Kuba Sobieski
Audio: Ted Martin Consoli

TONIGHT — 19:30, PIAZZA DEL DUOMOLaunching tonight in Milan, Three Mirrors by  will broadcast daily across twelve  scree...
24/04/2026

TONIGHT — 19:30, PIAZZA DEL DUOMO

Launching tonight in Milan, Three Mirrors by will broadcast daily across twelve screens in Milan and Rome every evening at 20:26 (local time) until 30 June.

Link in bio for screen location map.

As the year comes to a close, a little good news.For one night in December, children’s paintings replaced advertising on...
22/12/2025

As the year comes to a close, a little good news.

For one night in December, children’s paintings replaced advertising on . The work was created by pupils from 32 London state primary schools taking part in the CIRCA PIPELINE with Sir Frank Bowling.

Over six weeks, 7,152 children were given free art materials and time to create. For many, it was their first time working on canvas. For all of them, their first public exhibition.

After the lights went down, teachers, families and friends gathered for a drink at the Groucho Club with special thanks to and

Each sale of Frank’s hand signed print, Understanding Frank, funds art materials for 300 more children and helps us take the CIRCA PIPELINE nationwide.

Link in bio.

Film by
Special thanks to

Address

Piccadilly Circus
London
W1J9LL

Opening Hours

Monday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Tuesday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Wednesday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Thursday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Friday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Saturday 8:23pm - 8:27pm
Sunday 8:23pm - 8:27pm

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when CIRCA posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Establishment

Send a message to CIRCA:

Share

Category