1933年生于意大利比耶拉。自1955年开始其作品陆续展出，后于1960年在意大利都灵的加拉泰亚画廊举办首场个展，早期实践致力于自画像的探索。1961年至1962年间，他创作了最早的一组“镜画”作品，将观者本身与实时现场纳入其中，带回被20世纪前卫艺术所摒弃的文艺复兴透视法，并将其逆转。此作品很快令这位艺术家蜚声国际，并于60年代在欧美重要画廊与博物馆举办诸多个展。“镜画”系列也成为其艺术创作于理论思想的基石。
1965年至1966年间，他创作了一组名为《减少的物品》的作品，被视为“贫穷艺术”运动的奠基之作，皮斯特莱托也成为这一运动的核心力量与领军人物。1967年起，他的工作开始跳出传统展览空间，在此后的数十年间，他不断将来自不同领域与社会各界的艺术家聚合到一起进行“创造性合作”。
1975年至1976年，其作品《空间》分为12个连续的展览，在都灵的斯坦画廊进行——这是其一系列为 时一年，以“时间大陆”为名之作品的首部曲。该系列还包括《白色之年》（1989年）和《快乐的海龟》（1992年）。1978年，在都灵的一场展览确定了皮斯特莱托未来创作的两个方向：《镜面的分割与倍增》与《艺术承载信仰》。
八十年代初期，他完成了一系列硬聚氨酯雕塑创作，并在1984年于佛罗伦萨美景堡所举办的个展中以大理石呈现。1985年至1989年间，皮斯特莱托创作了一系列“黑暗”作品，名为《肮脏的艺术》。九十年代，通过“公共艺术计划”，以及创建于比耶拉的艺术城市-皮斯特莱托基金会和理念大学，他将艺术与社会各领域积极地联系起来，旨在激起与制造“有责任的社会变化”。
2003年，他获得威尼斯双年展金狮奖终生成就奖。2004年，都灵大学授予皮斯特莱托政治学荣誉博士学位。值此时机，他也宣布了自己最新创作阶段，“第三天堂”。2007年，由于“作为一名艺术家、教育家和社会活动家，他将源源不断的创造力贡献给艺术，创造出给世界带来全新理解方式的、划时代的艺术形式”，皮斯特莱托在耶路撒冷获颁沃尔夫艺术奖。
2010年，其文章《第三天堂》以意大利语、英语、法语和德语四种语言出版。2011年，他出任波尔多Evento 2011双年展“艺术与城市再演进”的艺术总监一职。2012年，他开始致力宣传“重生日”，这一首个庆祝重生的日子定为每年的12月21日，迎来世界各地的特别活动。
2013年，巴黎卢浮宫举办其个展“米开朗基罗·皮斯特莱托：一年— —世间天堂”。同年，他在东京获颁“高松宫殿下纪念世界文化奖”的绘画奖。2014年，在意大利当任欧盟轮值主席国期间，其“第三天堂”的标志符号进入了布鲁塞尔欧盟总部的大厅。
2015年5月，他被授予古巴哈瓦那艺术大学的荣誉博士。同年他完成大型装置《重生》，立于联合国驻日内瓦总部万国宫。2016年，位于哈瓦那的古巴国家美术馆举办皮斯特莱托大型回顾展，展出从60年代的绘画，到最新的《第三天堂》，再到完成于2015年的古巴“镜画”，横跨其创作生涯的多个维度。
2017年，其个展“米开朗基罗·皮斯特莱托：壹加壹等于三”作为威尼斯双年展平行项目展，在圣乔治马焦雷教堂亮相。2019年6月，南方双年展（Bienal Sur）举办了 “皮斯特莱托回路”，这是双年展中完全为这位艺术家而设的一个部分。这一广泛的展览于2020年3月结束，包括各种场地，其中包括：意大利大使馆、MUNTREF（前移民酒店和当代艺术中心）、贝尼托·昆奎拉博物馆等。2020年，皮斯托莱托推出了一些新的镜子作品，在圣吉米那诺的常青画廊（Galleria Continua）展出，直到2021年5月。
2021年，"Universario "在艺术城基金会揭幕，这是一个展示艺术家最新研究的空间，2022年12月，他的最新著作《创造的公式》（La formula della creazione）出版，书中回溯了他整个艺术生涯和理论思考的基本步骤和演变。
Born in Biella in 1933. He began to exhibit his work in 1955 and in 1960 he had his first solo show at Galleria Galatea in Turin. An inquiry into self-portraiture characterizes his early work.
In the two-year period 1961-1962 made the first Mirror Paintings, which directly include the viewer and real time in the work, and open up perspective, reversing the Renaissance perspective that had been closed by the twentieth-century avant-gardes. These works quickly brought Pistoletto international acclaim, leading, in the sixties, to one-man shows in important galleries and museums in Europe and the United States. The Mirror Paintings are the foundation of his subsequent artistic output and theoretical thought.
In 1965 and 1966 he produced a set of works entitled Minus Objects, considered fundamental to the birth of Arte Povera, an art movement of which Pistoletto was an animating force and a protagonist.
In 1967 he began to work outside traditional exhibition spaces, with the first instances of that “creative collaboration”he developed over the following decades by bringing together artists from different disciplines and diverse sectors of society. In 1975-76 he presented a cycle of twelve consecutive exhibitions, Le Stanze, at the Stein Gallery in Turin. This was the first of a series of complex, year-long works called“time continents”. Others are White Year (1989) and Happy Turtle (1992).
In 1978, in a show in Turin, Pistoletto defined two main directions his future artwork would take: Division and Multiplication of the Mirror and Art Takes On Religion.
In the early eighties he made a series of sculptures in rigid polyurethane, translated into marble for his solo show in 1984 at Forte di Belvedere in Florence. From 1985 to 1989 he created the series of“dark”volumes called Art of Squalor. During the nineties, with Project Art and with the creation in Biella of Cittadellarte - Fondazione Pistoletto and the University of Ideas, he brought art into active relation with diverse spheres of society with the aim of inspiring and producing responsible social change.
In 2003 he won the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifelong Achievement. In 2004 the University of Turin awarded him a laurea honoris causa in Political Science. On that occasion the artist announced what has become the most recent phase of his work, Third Paradise. In 2007, in Jerusalem, he received the Wolf Foundation Prize in the Arts,“for his constantly inventive career as an artist, educator and activist whose restless intelligence has created prescient forms of art that contribute to fresh understanding of the world.” In 2010 he wrote the essay The Third Paradise, published in Italian, English, French and German.
In 2012 he started promoting the Rebirth-day, first worldwide day of rebirth, celebrated every year on 21st December with initiatives taking place all around the world. In 2013 the Louvre in Paris hosted his personal exhibition Michelangelo Pistoletto, année un–le paradis sur terre. In this same year he received the Praemium Imperiale for painting, in Tokyo.
In May 2015 he received a degree honoris causa from the Universidad de las Artes of Havana in Cuba. In the same year he realizes a work of big dimensions, called Rebirth, situated in the park of the Palais des Nations in Geneva, headquarters of the UN.
In 2017 the text written by Michelangelo Pistoletto Ominitheism and Demopraxy. Manifesto for a regeneration of society was published. In 2021 the Universario, an exhibition space in which the artist presents his most recent research, was inaugurated at Cittadellarte, and in December 2022 his latest book, La formula della creazione, in which he retraces the fundamental steps and the evolution of his entire artistic career and theoretical reflection, was published.
