To be followed live: Artist, art critic and founder of the Ars Technica association in Paris, Piero Gilardi talks with Valérie da Costa, art historian, art critic and teacher.

This dialogue between the artist Piero Gilardi and Valérie da Costa, a specialist in Italian art, is an opportunity to look back on the artistic, theoretical and political career of one of the leading figures in Italian art of the 1960s.

Piero Gilardi was born in Turin in 1942. From 1965, he created his natural carpets (tappeti natura) in polyurethane foam that he exhibited at the Sperone Gallery (Turin) in 1966 and then in 1967 at the Sonnabend Gallery (Paris) and at the Fischbach Gallery (New York).

In 1969 begins a long activist and transcultural experience that aims at theoretical analysis and the conjunction "Arte Vita" (Art Life). As a political activist and animator of young culture, he conducts different experiences of collective creativity in the urban and "global" peripheries in Nicaragua and on Indian reservations in the United States, as well as in Africa. He resumed his artistic activity in the 1980s, creating interactive installations that speak of the relationship between humans and nature and the world, offering the visitor the possibility of being part of the work. These proposals seek in particular to raise awareness of ecological issues by grasping the contribution of technology and science in the world of art. 

Since 2003, he has been promoting the project of the Living Art Park of Turin, where all his experiences related to the Nature-Culture dialectic are summarized.

Due to the current health context, the cultural program "Penser le Présent" is only accessible in person to students of the Beaux-Arts de Paris and is available live on social networks for the public.

Penser le Présent D+7 to be seen on the site or to listen to as a podcast on the app