Piero Gilardi (1942 - 2023)

Piero Gilardi

Piero Gilardi is an Italian painter and decorator. A catalytic figure in the Arte Povera movement centred in Turin in the late 1960s, Gilardi's utopian and selfless commitment to the association of neo-avant-garde artists from Western Europe and North America made him one of the most influential artistic figures of the period.

Piero Gilardi became internationally renowned and witnessed the influence of Pop Art in Europe. An itinerant artist, theorist and organiser, he contributed to the birth of Arte Povera, especially working to establish relationships with other similar initiatives that were simultaneously taking place outside of Italy.

Much of Gilardi's later work is united by a theme or interaction between the work and the viewer. The master has devoted more than a decade to his most ambitious project, Parco Arte Vivente (Park of Living Art or PAV). A collaborative effort that grew out of Gilardi's design, the PAV is a monumental undertaking that has transformed an abandoned plot of land in the heart of Turin's working-class Lingotto district into a six-acre green space dedicated to public, environmental and artistic interests.