Continuing Magazzino Italian Art’s commitment to fostering insightful conversations and relevant scholarship on Italian art, Magazzino hosted presentations and conversations in conjunction with Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura—Italian artist Piero Gilardi’s first institutional solo exhibition in the U.S., open now until January 9, 2023.
Through expert and scholarly testimonies, presenters contextualized the life, legacy, and philosophies of Piero Gilardi, the protagonist of Tappeto-Natura, with a focus on the artistic and industrial prominence of Turin, Gilardi’s hometown, the complexities of his ecological vision, and the extensive reiterations of his most famous work, Tappeti-Natura. The speakers included Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura Curator, Elena Re, Dr. Teresa Kittler, Dr. Elizabeth Mangini, and Dr. Christian Rattemeyer.
Gilardi Study Day was on Saturday, October 8, 11:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. in Gallery 1, with an hour intermission for lunch from 1:15 to 2:15.
The Tappeto-Natura: A Place of Our Time | 11:15 a.m.
Elena Re, Curator of Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura, Art Critic
Since 1965, albeit in alternate phases, Piero Gilardi has never ceased to produce his Tappeto-Natura (Nature-Carpet) works. This is because the artist’s desire has always been to put together an ideal landscape, piece by piece, one capable of arousing a universal sentiment of “re-enchantment” with nature itself. Thus, Gilardi’s ecological thinking and his relational art—coupled with his desire to create a genuine international community in which Arte Povera might establish a dialogue with other artistic movements and with only apparently distant worlds—is all encapsulated in such works. This is a story that shifts between a possible dream and a concrete utopia, between poetic vision and sense of potential, between art and life. Hence, on the basis of archive documents and unpublished conversations with the artist, Elena Re’s intent is to recount Gilardi’s never-ending journey toward this ideal landscape, to highlight its innermost meaning, interpreting it as an ultimately inhabitable place: indeed, a place of our time. The Tappeto-Natura thus constitutes the driving force behind the artist’s entire expressive research. And that is why it is the focus of the exhibition at Magazzino Italian Art.
Piero Gilardi’s “Nature-Carpets” as Spaces of Encounter | 12:15 p.m.
Elizabeth Mangini, Art Historian,Associate Professor and Program Chair of History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts, San Francisco
From his first experiments with sculpting foam rubber in 1965, through a decade of direct socio-political action, to the foundation of Turin’s Parco d’Arte Vivente (Park of Living Art, 2008-present) Piero Gilardi has harnessed both nature and technology to create spaces of encounter, where activated viewers engage with forms, materials, ideas, and politics.This lecture begins by considering the artist’s early Nature-Carpets and their genesis in the context of Turin’s artistic and industrial milieu. Looking at important exhibitions from 1966 to 1968, we focused on the way Gilardi defied conventions, embracing ecology and technology in equal measure, striving to create works that liberated the viewer. From that historical perspective, we looked more broadly at the artist’s career-long endeavor to create spaces of encounter, collaboration, and engagement. An important touch point of late 1960s Italian art and design, Gilardi’s Nature-Carpets nevertheless predicted some of the most salient features of international postmodernism at the turn of the century.
Tutti Frutti: A Botanist in Plastic | 2:15 p.m.
Teresa Kittler, Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of York
This talk takes Gilardi’s Nature-Carpets as a point of departure for exploring a longer history of “nature” within the modern home. If plants and flowers belong to a revised conception of the aesthetics and design of modern architecture and interiors (Sparke, 2020), then their artificial three-dimensional equivalents go hand in hand with this history. The tradition of botanical and horticultural modelling was revived and expanded towards the end of the eighteenth century, alongside the emerging discipline of botany, with collections such as those established in the Royal Physics and Natural History Museum in Florence. In the nineteenth century, pomological modelling was bound up with scientific and technological advances in agricultural production, for which Turin—Gilardi’s natal home—played a significant role: artificial fruit manufacture belonged to the world of agricultural experimentation—the production, distribution, and commercialisation of produce. A popular domestic activity in the nineteenth century, it was subsequently parodied by the Italian Futurists. By tracing this history up to the 1960s, this paper asks what was at stake in Gilardi’s reproduction of “nature”?
Piero Gilardi 1967-1969: From Inventing Forms to Inventing Formations | 3:15
Christian Rattemeyer, Independent curator, writer, and translator
This presentation focuses on the decisive years, 1967-1969 in Piero Gilardi’s practice when he shifted his artistic practice from making objects to created networks—from forms to formations. In 1967, only two years after his celebrated objects made of polyurethane foam entitled Tappeti-Natura (Nature-Carpets) had started to take their definitive shape, the young Italian artist Piero Gilardi staged an exhibition at Gian Enzo Sperone’s gallery in Milan of works he termed Oggetti Poveri (Poor Objects). This series of works is comprised of simple, hand-made objects meant to retain a utilitarian function—a comb, a pair of sandals, a saw, a shopping trolley, and more. In an interview with Francesco Manacorda from 2008, Gilardi commented that these objects “were made autonomously and that, therefore, expressed the individual’s desire to disengage from mass consumption and to rebuild—symbolically with one’s own hands and with one’s own creativity—objects of daily use.” This series of works might be the first indication in concrete, material form, of the ideological, political, and philosophical shifts that were occurring in Gilardi’s practice in the years immediately following the production and release of his celebrate
d series of Tappeti-Natura. But these works also serve as a coda to Gilardi’s “object-oriented approach to art” as an artistic practice of creating objects intended for use. Soon, it would be replaced entirely by Gilardi’s activities as a writer, critic, activist, and organizer, which culminated in his advisory involvement in the two exhibitions Op Losse Schroeven, organized by Wim Beeren at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and When Attitudes Become Form, organized by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Bern, which both took place in March/April 1969.
About the speakers
About Elena Re
An art critic and independent curator, she works with public and private institutions, both in Italy and abroad. She explores Italian art through cultural projects, exhibitions, lectures, and publications. Her interest lies in the thought that precedes the artwork as well as in a transdisciplinary approach to art. Her research thus ranges from conceptual photography to radical architecture and the notion of the multiple. On the latter theme, she presented the exhibition Arte Povera and “Multipli,” Torino 1970–1975 at Sprüth Magers Gallery (Berlin, 2014) and at the Fondazione ICA (Milan, 2019–2020). She is the scientific director of the Archivio Giorgio Ciam; she follows the careers of many artists, and has contributed to the international recognition of Luigi Ghirri’s work. Since 2003, she has curated Jacobacci & Partners’ Arte e Progetto collection. She co-curated the exhibition Tutto. Perspectives on Italian Art at Museion (Bolzano, 2018–2019) and at Sammlung Goetz (Munich 2019–2020), featuring a catalogue published by Hatje Cantz. Her books include Luigi Ghirri – Project Prints. An Adventure in Thinking and Looking (JRP|Ringier, Zürich 2012), published on the occasion of the exhibition at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea. She is the curator of the exhibition Gilardi: Tappeto-Natura at Magazzino Italian Art (Cold Spring, NY, May 7, 2022 – January 9, 2023).
About Elizabeth Mangini
Elizabeth Mangini is an art historian who specializes in social and material histories of postwar and contemporary art. Her research interests include transnational modern and contemporary art, postwar Italian art, European and American art, theories of sculpture, social histories of art, art and labor, art and philosophy, artistic collaborations, global feminisms, artistic identity, and public art. She is currently Associate Professor and Program Chair of History of Art and Visual Culture at California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
Professor Mangini’s book Seeing through Closed Eyelids: Giuseppe Penone and the Nature of Sculpture was published by University of Toronto Press in 2021. Other recent publications include writings on Joan Jonas, Mario Merz, Mimmo Rotella, and Gilberto Zorio. She is a regular contributor to Artforum magazine, is a member of the scientific committee of the Mimmo Rotella Institute, and serves on the editorial board of Palinsesti, a journal of Italian Contemporary Art. Professor Mangini has held curatorial positions and postgraduate fellowships at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and MASS MOCA. She is a graduate of Stanford University (BA), Williams College/Clark Art Institute (MA), and The Graduate Center, City University of New York (Ph.D.).
About Teresa Kittler
Teresa Kittler is lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of York. She holds a PhD in History of Art from UCL. She has received fellowships from the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, the British School at Rome, the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA), and Magazzino Italian Art. Her writing has appeared in edited collections, exhibition catalogues, magazines, and journals such as Oxford Art Journal, I Tatti Studies, Novecento Transnazionale, and Art History. She has worked as Assistant Curator for the 10 Gwangju Biennale (2014) and in 2021 she curated the exhibition Nivola: Sandscapes at Magazzino Italian Art (NY).
About Christian Rattemeyer
Christian Rattemeyer is an independent curator, writer, and translator. He served as Executive Director of Sculpture Center in New York from 2019 to 2020, and as Associate Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 2007 to 2019. At MoMA, Rattemeyer curated and co-curated nine exhibitions, including SURROUNDS: 11 Installations (2019); Transmissions: Art from Eastern Europe and Latin America 1960-1980 (2015), Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan (2012), and Compass in Hand (2009). Previously, Rattemeyer worked as Curator at Artists Space (2003-2007) and has worked for Documenta11 (2002), documenta X (1997) and documenta IX (1992) in Kassel, his hometown. He has published many essays and books on contemporary art, including Exhibiting the New Art: When Attitudes Become Form and Op Losse Schroeven, 1969, Afterall Publishers, 2010. Rattemeyer lives and works in upstate New York.
