Photographers

Piero Fogliati (1930–2016) was an Italian kinetic and programmed-art pioneer whose work fused scientific experimentation with poetic imagination. Born in Canelli and based for most of his life in Turin, he began as a self‑taught painter in the 1950s, exploring both figurative and abstract‑informal languages before turning toward perceptual research and the technological possibilities of movement, light, and sound.

Fogliati’s work is rooted in the concept of the “Città Fantastica,” a visionary program he developed in the early 1960s. This imagined city transformed urban elements—light, atmospheric conditions, acoustics, water systems—into multisensory aesthetic experiences. Throughout his career he invented extraordinary machines that generated visual and sonic phenomena, ranging from light prisms and chromokinetic devices to air‑sculpting instruments. His practice unified engineering, physics, and artistic intuition, aiming to reveal hidden aspects of natural phenomena.

Starting in the 1960s, Fogliati exhibited widely in Italy and abroad, holding solo shows in Florence, Rome, and Turin. He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1978 and again in 1986 (in the section dedicated to “Art and Science”), as well as the ARTEC Biennale in Nagoya in 1997. His work appeared in numerous major exhibitions, including the 2006 ZKM Karlsruhe survey of contemporary art. A major retrospective held in Turin in 2003, titled “Piero Fogliati. Il poeta della luce,” further cemented his reputation as a master of perceptual and technological art.

His works are housed in major international collections, including GAM Turin, Museion Bolzano, MACRO Rome, ZKM Karlsruhe, Technorama Winterthur, Musée de l’énergie électrique in Mulhouse, the AT&T Foundation, and the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, which dedicated a solo exhibition to him in 1992. Fogliati’s synthesis of scientific inquiry and poetic vision places him among the most singular and inventive figures of postwar European art.