The first comprehensive monograph on the pioneer of Arte Povera, inventor of a “relational aesthetics” in the 1960s, political activist, and advocate of an ecologically concerned undertaking in the visual arts.

Piero Gilardi (born 1942 in Torino) is a pioneer of Arte Povera and a proud advocate of an ecological-concerned undertaking in visual arts. He is a peripatetic artist who gathered information about experimental art and creators in the 1960s, promoting the work of Richard Long or Jan Dibbets, and introducing Bruce Nauman or Eva Hesse into Europe. He is also a political activist who marched with FIAT workers in the 1970s, and who founded, in the 2000s the Living Art Park, commissioning earthworks to contemporary artists such as Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster or Lara Almarcegui.

For all this and for much more—his design and fashion creations, his social endeavors, etc.—Piero Gilardi is emblematic of the evolutions of art and society of the last five decades. He is an artist whose works and theoretical researches are still relevant to map what art could achieve and how art could be useful in the "real world".

Text by: Andrea Bellini, Achille Bonito, Oliva Dan Cameron, Martina Corgnati, Diana Franssen, Francesco Manacorda, Henry Martin, Frank Popper, Pierre Restany, Michael Sonnabend