Piero Gilardi, one of the masters of poor art, has died: he was 80 years old. He had made his debut in the 1960s with the compositions in polyurethane foam, the famous Nature-Rugs, to establish himself internationally with the interactive installations conceived since the beginning of the 1980s in the name of a ‘relational’ art, engine of transformations social. The artist, born on August 3, 1942 in Turin, where he has always lived and worked, died suddenly on Sunday morning.
A central figure of a “transcultural” movement aimed at the elaboration of a critical thought and synthesis between art, man and nature, in 2008 in his Turin he promoted and supported the project of the “Pav – Parco Arte Vivente”, in which are summarized all his experiences related to this dialectic between nature and culture.
Piero Gilardi made his debut in 1963 with his first personal exhibition, “Macchine per il futuro”. In 1965 he created his first works in expanded polyurethane, the “Nature-Rugs” which he exhibited in Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam and New York. Starting in 1968 he interrupts the production of works to participate in the elaboration of the new artistic trends of the late 60s: Arte Povera, Land Art, Antiform Art. He collaborates in the creation of the first two international exhibitions of new trends at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and at the Kunsthalle Bern.
In 1969 he began a long “transcultural” experience aimed at the theoretical analysis and practice of the “Arte Vita” conjunction. As a political activist of the new left and animator of youth culture he conducts various experiences of collective creativity in the urban and ‘global’ suburbs: Nicaragua, Indian reservations in the USA and Africa.
In 1981 Gilardi resumed his activity in the artistic world, exhibiting installations in galleries accompanied by creative workshops with the public. In 1985 he began an artistic research with new technologies through the elaboration of the ‘Ixiana’ project which, presented at the Parc de la Villette in Paris, prefigures a technological park in which the general public could experiment digital technologies in an artistic sense.
During the 90s he developed a series of multimedia interactive installations with an intense international activity. Together with Claude Faure and Piotr Kowalski, he founded the international association Ars Technica. As head of the Italian section of Ars Technica, he promoted the international exhibitions “Arslab. Methods and Emotions” (1992), “Arslab. I Sensi del Virtuale” (1995), “Arslab. The labyrinths of the body at play” in Turin. (1999).
Gilardi has published two books of theoretical reflection on his various researches: “From art to life, from life to art (La Salamandra, 1981) and “Not for Sale” (Mazzotta, Milan 2000 and Les Presses du réel, Dijon 2003 He has written articles for various art magazines such as “Juliet” and “Flash Art”.