Piero Gilardi was born in Turin in 1942 and studied at the School of Art and the Accademia Albertina in Turin.

A pioneer in the field of technological art, in the 1960s Gilardi was one of the protagonists of Nouveau Realisme and European Pop Art. In 1963 he held his first private exhibition, “Machines for the Future”; two years later he designed the first pieces in polyurethane foam for Gufram, and began to exhibit his works in various cultural centres around the world, including Paris, Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg, Amsterdam and New York.

From 1968 onwards he joined the new artistic trends of the time - Arte Povera, Land Art, Anti-form Art - and collaborated in the production of several international magazines.