Piero Gilardi (Torino 1942-Torino 2023)

This artist’s work is based on a constant research on the relationship between human and nature, a research that uses tools that go far beyond painting, with the aim of combining art and life. Starting from Arte Povera, Land Art and Antiform arrives at the virtual as a new expressive channel. In fact, working in a transitional period in the 1960s, the artist defines himself as "post-pop". Gilardi, if also dedicated to collective creativity, with experiences of psychiatric ateliers and a form of political and anthropological theater. The artist believes that art must come out of its frame, becoming "habitable" and entering the space of experience. Gilardi expresses his opinion on the technology of the world, a discussed topic in that period. He believes in an art that trusts in technology but at the same time is confronted with a new subjectivity and with nature, warning of any technological prevarication on the human being but hoping in any case for a winning alliance between man and machine.

In 2000 with Guastalla’s gallery Piero Gilardi created the “Acquavirtuale” exhibition, an exhibition on the theme of water. On this occasion the artist remembers an essential point of his philosophy that connects man and nature: "water [...] accompanied birth and rebirth, just like psychoanalysis, unloads and purifies negative energy [ ..], embodied Eros - when not even Thanatos himself - in the metaphors of the natural landscape and its flows ". In addition to numerous "nature-rugs", the exhibition had the interactive installation with bionic interface entitled Liquid breath, is an inviting to observer and listen to the rhythmic sound of water tied to one's breath.