Dagli anni ’60 agli anni 2000
April 13th – May 31th, 2013
Opening: Saturday 13th April – h. 07:00 pm
Galleria Paola Verrengia is plased to present the personal exhibition of the artist Piero Gilardi on Saturday 13th April.
The exhibition “Percorsi di natura”, dedicated to Piero Gilardi (Turin 1942), will focus on his works from 1960 to 2000. At the beginning Gilardi produced large, hyper-realistic sculptures of polyurethane foam, called “Nature Carpets”.
With these interactive sculptures he tried to give a new meaning to the interaction between the viewer and artworks and between nature and culture.
He also acquired a great reputation as a critic of the art movement which he called “Micro Emotive Art” and was named “Arte Povera” by Germano Celant. This part of his artistic practice will be on display via documentation and photographs. In 1983 he returned to the art world and began a new series of “Nature Carpets”. Now, his main themes are the new media, virtual reality and interactive installations. He is also working on so-called “Relational Art-projects “in which he combines political activism and social goals around nature and society.
Piero Gilardi was born in Turin in 1942, where he lives and works. In 1963, he held his first personal exhibition “Macchine per il futuro” (“Machines for the Future”). Two years later, he created his first works made of expanded polyurethane, exhibiting in Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam and New York. Starting in 1968, he interrupted his production of art works in order to participate in the technical elaboration of the new artistic tendencies of the late ’60s: Arte Povera, Land Art and Antiform Art.
In 1981, he went back his activity in the artistic world, exhibiting installations in galleries, accompanied by creative workshops open to the general public. Since 1985, he has undertaken artistic research with the new technologies through the elaboration of the Project “IXIANA” which, presented at Parc de la Villette in Paris, prefigured a technological park where a vast public could experiment with digital technologies in an artistic sense. His most important exhibitions were in : Milan, Galleria Sperone (1967); Seoul, Seoul Olympic Park (1988); Venice, 45th Biennal of Venice (1993).
His works are in important museums like: Museum of modern art, New York; Galleria Civica d’arte moderna, Milan; Galleria Civica d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Turin; Museo d’arte contemporanea “L. Pecci”, Prato; Russian Museum, San Pietroburgo.
