The Italian painter Ugo Nespolo
Born in Biella, Italy, Ugo Nespolo is an Italian artist, film maker and writer. His activity as an artist began in the 1960s, when, influenced by the pop trends that exploded in America at the same time, he began creating works that seek ironic and eclectic content.
Initially, his works recalled and explored the aspirations that the artists of the Historic Avant-garde, Futurism and Dadaism movements had combined with the increasingly emerging Pop Art.
Nespolo's fame grew in the 1960s, and he exhibited in major cities around the world, including New York and Chicago. His first exhibition in Milan, entitled Macchine e Oggetti Condizionali (Machines and Conditional Objects), was so innovative that the art critic Germano Celat coined the Arte Povera movement.
His American interlude will be fundamental along with his European avant-garde heritage for the development of his artistic poetics, which he greatly owes to the Futurist movement. It was during these years that he experimented with many different techniques such as embroidery and inlays of different materials.
One of the core concepts of Nespolo's artistic production is to bring art into everyday life, which will lead him to combine High and Low culture.
Nespolo's art is appreciated and recognised all over the world, to the extent that it has been exhibited in the most important museums such as the Tate Modern in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. Wanting to bring art into everyday life, Nespolo also counts among his collaborations those with the Italian National Carabinieri Corps, for which he designed the historic calendar, and with Swatch, to celebrate the brand's 35th anniversary.
Ugo Nespolo's artistic language ranges from applied art to graphics to theatre. On a practical level, Nespolo, seeks different artistic solutions by using several materials such as wood, fabric and glass.
Ugo Nespolo and the Cinema of Artists
One of the founders of the Cinema of the Artists, Nespolo began directing numerous films featuring artists such as Lucio Fontana, Enrico Baj, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti, Allen Ginsberg and Edoardo Sanguineti. The making of these films was the result of numerous encounters in New York with personalities such as Yōko Ono, Andy Warhol and Jonas Mekas.
The long series of films made by the artist began in 1966 with the film Grazie, Mamma Kodak, which was followed by others, establishing him as a point of reference in Italy for the Cinema d'Artista. Nespolo's films were so popular that they were screened in many international museums including: the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Tate Modern in London, Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin, the Fondazione Prada in Milan and the Venice Biennale.
"I set off with the Bell & Howell 16mm with the Zoom Angenieux to discover cinema and I was lucky. [...] At the time, I thought of a kind of 'photographic theatre' full of improvisations and bizarre materials. The attempt was to land in a magical territory in perpetual, untiring movement, a game, in short, in which rationality was banished to make way for free associationist creation, sound and image, movement and colour, sense and non-sense." - Ugo Nespolo
Ugo Nespolo and the theatre
A lover of experimentation, Nespolo's artistic production is not limited to works and films but also to scenes and costumes for theatre plays. In 1986, he created the designs for the sets and costumes for the American premiere of Ferruccio Busoni's Turandot at the Stamford State Opera.
He later made the sets and costumes for Don Quixote staged at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome.
Ugo Nespolo: Artworks for sale with prices and value on Love Spot Galleries
For those interested in where to buy Ugo Nespolo, Love Spot Galleries offers a selection of works by the artist for sale online.
If you are interested in knowing Ugo Nespolo's prices, value or which works will be on display at the Love Spot Galleries, do not hesitate to contact us by sending an e-mail to [email protected].
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