The Mirror, The Machine, and The Artist
By ARTEX Artist
What Michelangelo Pistoletto teaches us about art in the age of AI There are moments in history when a new technology destabilizes art — not by replacing artists, but by forcing them to rethink their role. Photography did this in the 19th century. And today, artificial intelligence is doing it again. To understand this moment, it helps to look at how artists responded the last time the ground shifted. When photography emerged, painting lost its monopoly on representation. A camera could capture likeness, detail, and realism with mechanical precision. So painters asked a radical question: If a machine can reproduce reality, what is painting for? The answer did not lead to the end of art.