Published on the occasion of Piero Gilardi’s 2003 exhibition at Costantini Arte Contemporanea e il Torchio Galleria d’Arte, Milan.

Piero Gilardi’s artistic practice is certainly an early statement about this evolution into a machine-made and financialized nature. From his role as one of the early protagonists of Arte Povera, to his collective actions organized for protests, and since 2008 the development of his initiative Parco de Arte Vivente in Turin, Gilardi has forged a distinctive unity between artistic practice and activism.

Since 1963 Gilardi has produced large, hyper-realistic sculptures of polyurethane foam, the so-called Nature Carpets. With these interactive sculptures he tries to give new meaning to interaction between viewer and artwork and nature and culture.