Piero Gilardi

Piero Gilardi (1942-2023, Italy) was a renowned Italian artist celebrated for his innovative use of polyurethane foam to create immersive sculptures. Beginning in the 1960s, Gilardi’s plush landscapes brought the wilderness indoors, inviting viewers to engage with nature through a distorted scale and highlighting details often overlooked. For the Berlin Art Week 2024, ChertLüdde presents a solo exhibition by this pioneering artist curated by Marco Scotini and organised in collaboration with Fondazione Centro Studi Piero Gilardi, Turin and Galleria Giraldi, Livorno. The show includes a selection of his iconic Tappeti Natura (Nature Carpets) that cover the gallery’s walls and floor, along with archival material reflecting his ecological activism, political beliefs and commitment to social justice.

Piero Gilardi (1942-2023, Turin) created his first pieces in polyurethane foam in 1965, a medium that he would later exhibit internationally in cities like Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam and New York. From 1968, he stopped producing regular art works to pursue his interest in materials connected to the technological advancements of the time and engage in the new artistic trends like Arte Povera, Land Art and Antiform Art of the late ’60s. This led him to participate in the first two international exhibitions of the new trends at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and at the Bern Kunsthalle.

As a political activist and facilitator of youth culture, he organized several experiences of collective creativity across Africa, South America and Reservations in the USA. In 1981, he resumed his activity in the art world and exhibited installations, accompanied by creative public workshops. By 1985, he started an artistic research project with new technologies through the Ixiana Project (later presented at the Parc de la Villette in Paris). This work consisted of a technological park in which the public could artistically experiment with digital technologies. In 1993, he set up a “virtual” hall based on his decades of research at the 45th Biennial in Venice and more recently produced a number of multi-medial interactive installations and participated intensively in international shows like the ARTEC Biennial of Nagoya, Artifices 3 Paris and Multimediale 4 Karlsruhe. For many years, he presided over the international association “Art Technica” which promotes two Artlab exhibitions of neo-technological art in Turin. He has published two books of theoretical reflection about his varied forms of research: “Dall’arte alla vita, dalla vita all’arte” (From art to life, from life to art), La Salamandra, Milano 1981 and “Not for Sale”, Mazzotta, Milano 2000 and Les Presses du reel, Dijon 2003. He also wrote articles for a number of different art magazines such as Juliet and Flash Art.