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Piero Gilardi (3 August 1942 – 5 March 2023) was a visual artist. Born in Italy from a Swiss family, he studied at the Liceo Artistico in Turin. In an interview with LeGrace G. Benson, Gilardi stated that his personal encounter with artist
Michelangelo Pistoletto Michelangelo Pistoletto (born 23 June 1933) is an Italian painter, action and object artist, and art theorist. Pistoletto is acknowledged as one of the main representatives of the Italian Arte Povera. His work mainly deals with the subject mat ...
and others helped him in the development of his own artwork (in parallel with that of U.S. Pop Art). While trying to comprehend the
cybernetic Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...
idea of feedback and the scientific rationale behind man's mental synthesis, his perspective on reality changed; he then focused on the
fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...
and relationship of things around him. A catalytic figure in the
Arte Povera Arte Povera (; literally "poor art") was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in major cities throughout Italy and above all in Turin. Other cities where the movement was also important are ...
movement, concentrated in Turin in the late 1960s, Gilardi's Utopian and unselfish dedication to connecting neo- avant garde artists across Western Europe and North America made him one of the most influential artistic figures of the period, albeit not the most famous. He became known in the international scene and witnessed the impact of Pop Art Europe. Itinerant artist, theorist, and organizer, he contributed to the birth of Arte Povera, especially working to establish relationships with other similar initiatives that occurred simultaneously outside Italy, supporting the work artists such as Richard Long and Jan Dibbets, introducing the work of Bruce Nauman and
Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...
in Europe. His uncompromising commitment in favor of closer ties between art and life pushed for action in the fields of psychiatry and anthropology; Gilardi experimented with collective forms of political theater, workshops, and activist struggles with the workers of
Fiat Fiat Automobiles S.p.A., commonly known as simply Fiat ( , ; ), is an Italian automobile manufacturer. It became a part of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in 2014 and, in 2021, became a subsidiary of Stellantis through its Italian division, Stellant ...
and against the implementing of TAV ( Treni Alta Velocità: High Speed Trains) in the years 1970–80. During the 2000s, Gilardi initiated the outdoor project "Park of Living Art" in Turin, that welcomed artists ( Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Gilles Clément, Almarcegui Lara, and Michel Blazy ...) but also scientists and especially the public, invited to participate directly. Piero Gilardi appears as an iconic figure of developments in art and society over the past five decades; his work and theoretical research can always assess the potential for art to be effective in
the real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to reality in its unmediated form. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is an "impossible" category because of its inconceivability and opposition to expression. In depth psychology The Real is the ...
.


Early works


1960s

Gilardi was born in
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
of parents Mario Gilardi and Cecilia Lavelli. In 1963 he made his debut with an exhibition of Neodadaist ''Macchine per il Futuro'' at Galleria L'Immagine of Turin. He gained fame with the nature Carpets in 1965 : these are works made of
polyurethane Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) is a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethane term ...
, which reproduce in a very realistic style and fragments of natural environment for recreational purposes, but also to report to a style of life which, with the passage of time becomes more and more artificial (Greto of stream, Gallery of Modern Art,
Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...
). These rugs were exposed to Hamburg,
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
,
Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...
,
Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
,
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
, New York City, and Paris. From 1968 Gilardi stopped the production of works to participate in the theoretical development of new artistic trends:
Arte Povera Arte Povera (; literally "poor art") was an art movement that took place between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s in major cities throughout Italy and above all in Turin. Other cities where the movement was also important are ...
,
Land Art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mo ...
and Antiform, participating in the years 1967 – 1968 as a contributor to the realization of the first two international shows of the new trend of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam such as at the Kunsthalle in
Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...
, Switzerland. The Stedelijk Museum displays date, in the section dedicated to the history of the museum, part of the correspondence between Gilardi and Wim Beeren, one of the curators of the museum. From 1968 and for all the 1970s his artistic activity was accompanied by the formation of political activism in the so-called New Left (or far left), covering the artistic movements of collective creativity and the spontaneous, and he worked in various social environments, which offered themselves as contributions to the animation's cultural base. Creative experiences not only in Italy but also in
Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...
, various countries in Africa, and in the territories of Native Americans in the United States of America contributed to the efforts as well.


1970s

Gilardi was involved in creating social relations through art. Gilardi was involved with the occurrence of collective and spontaneous creativity by working in many social contexts.


1980s

Gilardi experimented with new technological languages and began to create a series of "virtual reality" art works. Gilardi returned to full artistic production in 1981, telling his own artistic and ideological discourse in a text entitled ''From art to life, from life to art,'' published that same year as his re-embrace of his own artistic production . From 1985 he undertook an artistic research project with new technologies through the development of the project "IXIANA" which was presented at the
Parc de la Villette The Parc de la Villette () is the third-largest park in Paris, in area, located at the northeastern edge of the city in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, 19th arrondissement. The park houses one of the largest concentrations of cultural venues ...
in Paris, a technological park in which the general public could experience in an artistic sense, digital technologies. Later in a spurt of intense international activity he developed a series of interactive multimedia. Along with Claude Faure and Piotr Kowalski, he formed the International Association "Ars Technica", association connected to the
Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie The Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (, "City of Science and Industry", abbreviated la CSI) or simply CSI is a large science museum in Europe. Located in the Parc de la Villette in Paris, France, it is one of the three dozen French Cultural ...
uniting philosophers, artists, and scientists such as Jean-Marc Levy-Leblond, Jean-Louis Boissier,
Jean-Max Albert Jean-Max Albert (born 1942) is a French painter, sculptor, writer, and musician. He has published theory, books on artists, and a collection of poems, plays and novels inspired by quantum physics. He perpetuated experiments initiated by Paul Klee ...
, Sara Holt, and Jean-Claude Mocik who reflected on the relationship between art and new technologies. As the head of the Italian section of ''Ars Technica'' he promoted international exhibitions in Turin, "Arslab Methods and Emotion" (1992) "Arslab, and Senses of Virtual" (1995), "Arslab, and The mazes of the body in the game (1999), and numerous opportunities for study in new media.


After Arte Povera in Italy

Gilardi eventually moved away from the notions of Arte Povera and completely revamped his work (however, he still incorporated nature into his pieces. He became more involved in environmental work and focused on the importance of interaction and community in the social sphere. Most of Gilardi's later work is united by a theme, or the interactions between work and spectator. Among the various creations "remember to install pulse" , in which the heartbeat of the observer of the work – recorded by a sensor – determines changes to the whole; ''Absolut'', forest of synthetic materials, translucent and cold shared emotion, involves two people in a performance interactive computing, referring to new approaches and exchange in society: virtual and globalized. Gilardi devoted more than a decade to his most ambitious endeavor, the Parco Arte Vivente (Park of Living Art or PAV). A collaborative effort that grew from Gilardi's design, PAV is a monumental undertaking that transformed a disused parcel of land in the heart of
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
's
working-class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...
Lingotto district into a six-acre green space devoted to community, environmental, and artistic concerns. Commissioned earthworks by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster and Lara Almarcegui define the site and provide an ongoing place of exploration for city residents and visitors alike. Gilardi worked on the Living Art Park of the City of Turin from 2002 on. He was the President of the undertaking. He was an artist contributing towards the creative direction of the project.


Artworks


Nature carpets

The nature carpets were created in the post-pop period of the late 1960s. These are horizontal segments of nature reproduced with foam rubber, allowing for a real tactile and bodily experience of the works. The illustrated work "Uragano" (Hurricane), made in 1989, evokes a tropical terrain – a banana grove – with the evidence of the aftermath of a storm. The nature of these "carpets" is therefore that of capturing the accidental nature and chaoticness of things, thus reminding one of the biological cycle of life/death.


Installations

Between 1988 and 2001, the artist addressed his research in the field of the new media art, initially creating interactive multimedia installations, followed by those of "
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...
". The characteristic that this cycle of works has in common is that of involving as many people as possible in the interactive technology, placing in evidence the relational component in the sharing of the virtual and digital dimension. The illustrated work "Connected Es" is characterized by the offer of bodily interfacing with devices for measuring one's breathing and heart-beat, leading to an intense emotional attuning. Gilardi's technical collaborator on the piece was Ennio Bertrand.


Ixiana Project

This was a project (not achieved) of an "artistic-technological park" developed with a large group of artists and designers in the field of new media art, during the second half of the 1980s, for Parc de La Villette in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. The project was centered around an enormous inhabitable sculpture, containing a virtual creative path dedicated to the five senses, and representing a "giant child" stretched out lying upon a grassy field. The illustration shows a segment of the sculpture with the various "stations" of the interior path culminating in the head, the quarters for the telematic network connections.


Park of Living Art

As of 2002, a space has been opened in Turin where it is possible to create an art park. Gilardi, also based on experience accumulated in elaborating the IXIANA project, then developed a new idea coherent with the new goals of artistic research, with particular reference to Life Science Art. Before the successive elaboration on behalf of the current Planning Group, the proposal of the Eco Park of Art was presented on two levels: a higher open-air level, with a path of artistic installations on the grassy grounds and an underground level, with a series of rooms and laboratories for free expression.


Books

Gilardi published two books: "Dall'arte alla vita, dalla vita all'arte" (From art to life, from life to art), (1981) "Not for Sale", (2000) "Not for Sale" (Mazzotta, Milan 2000 and Les Presses du réel, Dijon 2003). Gilardi also penned articles for various art magazines, including ''Juliet'' and '' Flash Art''.


Other

*Member of the Artistic Direction Committee


Exhibitions


Solo exhibitions

1967 – Gallery Ileana Sonnabend, Paris.
1967 – Gallery Zwirner, Koln.
1967 – Gallery Sperone, Milan
1967 – Gallery Fischbach, New York
1991 – Gallery Sperone Westeater, New York
1998 – Gallery Massimo Minini, Brescia
1999 – Loggetta Lombardesca, Ravenna.
2006 – Civic Gallery of Modena
2009 – Semiose galerie, Paris.
2010 – leçon de choses, CCC-Centre de Création Contemporaine, Tours
2012 – Collaborative Effects, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
2012 – Effetti , Castello de Rivoli, Turin
2013 – Collaborative Effects, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham


Group exhibitions

1967 – Salon de Mai, Paris
1968 – Group Exhibition, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
1987 – "Terrae Motus" Grand Palais, Paris
1988 – Seoul Olympic Park, Seoul
1990 – "La otra scultura" Palacio de Cristallo, Madrid
1992 – "Artifices II", Paris.
1993 – "Artec 93", Nagoya.
1993 – 45th Biennial of Venice
1995 – "Multimediale 4", Karlsruhe, Germany.
1996 – "Art & Fashion", Biennial of Florence. 2000 – "Il sentimento del 2000" Triennial, Milan
2000 – "There is no spirit in painting", Le Consortium, Dijon.
2001/2- "Zero to infinity: Arte Povera 1962–1972" Tate Modern, London; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington
2001 – "Arte povera oggi" (Poor Art Today) Italian Culture Institute, London.
2001 – "L'arte elettronica. Metamorfosi e metafore" (Electronic Art, metamorphosis and metaphors) Civic Gallery of Modern Art, Ferrara.
2001 – "Media Connection", Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome.
2001 – "Le tribù dell'arte", (Art Tribes) City Gallery of Modern Art, Rome
2002 – "Techne 02. Tra arte e tecnologia" (Between Art and Technology) Spazio Oberdan, Milan.
2003 – "Fragments d'un discours italien" Musée d'Art Moderne e Contemporain, Geneva
2003 – "Coolustre", Collection Lambert en Avignon
2003 – "Inverosimile", installation à la Biennial d'Art Contemporain de Lyon
2003 – "Flower Power" Musée d'Art Moderne, Lille
2006 – "Interdependence" City Gallery of Modena


Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilardi, Piero 1942 births 2023 deaths Italian contemporary artists Artists from Turin Arte Povera