Pier Paolo Calzolari, born in 1943 in Bologna, is recognized as a leading figure of the Arte Povera movement and a seminal artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, video, audio, text, performance, installation, architecture, light, and video. Through the use of both ordinary and unconventional materials, such as lead, salt, neon, ice, tobacco, moss, fire, and butter, Calzolari explores transformation of matter and ephemeral states—exploiting an underlying fragility in his materials. This book focuses on the artist’s work over the last 25 years and coincides with concurrent exhibitions (April 28–June 2, 2012) at Marianne Boesky Gallery and Pace Gallery, the artist’s first exhibitions in New York since 1988.
