Alba, 1902 – 1964

Born in Alba in 1902, Giuseppe – known by everyone as Pinot – Gallizio came to painting in the early Fifties – after encountering Piero Simondo – transferring to it the interests and different skills acquired in the course of his previous experiences.

The decisive boost came thanks to a second meeting that took place in the summer of 1955 in Albissola with the Danish artist Asger Jorn. In September of the same year Gallizio, Jorn and Simondo founded in Alba the Laboratorio Sperimentale del Movimento Internazionale per una Bauhaus Immaginista, a common site of artistic experimentation, debate and driving force behind cultural and political battles.

By organizing in 1956 the 1st World Congress of Free Artists, Alba became a meeting venue for artists and intellectuals from all over Europe. In 1957 Gallizio participated in the founding of the Internazionale Situazionista alongside Guy Debord, Michèle Bernstein, Asger Jorn, Walter Olmo, Piero Simondo, Elena Verrone, Rulph Rumney.

By then artist full-time, Gallizio in February 1958 started the production of the “industrial painting”, using large canvases up to 74 meters, destined to be cut and sold by the meter. In 1959 at the Galerie Drouin in Paris his long industrial painting rolls became one of the first environmental paint: la Caverna dell’antimateria (1958-1959).

The recognition of the value of his research is witnessed by numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, from Paris to Munich and Copenhagen, and the personal room at the Venice Biennale of 1964, inaugurated a few months after the sudden death of the artist.