Ugo Nespolo

Ugo Nespolo was born in Mosso (Biella) in 1941. Painter, sculptor, an important exponent of Italian contemporary art. Graduated from the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts, he later graduated  in Modern Literature showing great interest in Semiology. He made his debut in the Italian art scene in the 1960s with influences from Pop art and with close activism with conceptual artists and poor artists. His production is soon characterized by a strong transgressive, ironic accent and that apparent sense of fun, qualities that will lend themselves to the cinematographic canvas by exploring this means of expression early on, in the seventies. The eighties represent for Ugo Nespolo the most appreciated maturation of the American period, his paintings represent objects and clichés of US cities. He collaborates with Rai for which he creates video titles, collaborates in advertising creations, faithful to the dictates of the historical avant-gardes of "bringing art into life", the artist must occupy spaces of common life, get out of the assigned, canonical spaces. In the 1990s, he added his commitment to the theater to his numerous activities, creating sets and costumes for Doninzettii's elisir d'amor at the Teatro dell'Opera in Rome, the Paris Opera, Lausanne, Liegoi and Metz. Nespolo is also counted among the "masters of the Palio", for having painted the two sendalli in 2000 for the Asti Palio of that edition. In 2005 in Turin, he created for Gtt thematic works in the Turin underground stations and later decorated the exterior of the shopping center in Via Livorno with his unmistakable imprint. In 2007, he painted the banner of the Palio di Siena on August 16th. He also collaborated with the Brooksfield brand for a two-year stylistic intervention in the collections and in communication (2009-2010). In 2010 he became an honorary member of the literary artistic movement of Turin. In March 2012 he received the honorary citizenship of the city of Santhià, where he spent his childhood and adolescence and where he made his first pictorial experiments. There are numerous collaborations for the creation of advertising campaigns: among many with Campari, Piaggio and Caffarel. Nespolo's presence for Expo 2015 can be found in six railway stations between Turin Porta Susa and Rho Fiera. Redevelopment model of the stations where the artist proposes billboards, personalized totems and window stickers of the Italian province. Also in October 2015, Nespolo was present at the Tate Modern in London at the debate following the screening of his film "Buongiorno Michelangelo" within the program "Arte Povera was Pop: Artists'' and experimental cinema in Italy 1960s-70s"; in May 2016 at the Guggenheim in Venice for “If Arte Povera Was Pop” and subsequently at the Center Pompidou in Paris at the Round Table “Arte Povera Hier et Aujourd'hui (9 and 10 June 2016). In 2016 he joined the “Corporate Art” Manifesto by Luca Desiata together with Alexander Ponomarev, Fernando De Filippi and other artists. With the exhibition dedicated to Ugo Nespolo, entitled The triumph of books, (from 19 April to 25 May 2018) the National Central Library of Florence pays tribute to an artist present in its collections. The exhibition brings together works created in more than forty years of activity that find their right setting in the Institute which, more than any other, bears witness to the infinite aspects of the culture of our country. Ugo Nespolo still lives and works in Turin today.