Master ad Honorem to artist Ugo Nespolo

IULM University confers the Master's degree ad Honorem in Management of Art and Cultural Resources to Ugo Nespolo, painter, sculptor and important exponent of Italian contemporary art. The prestigious award will be conferred by Rector Prof. Gianni Canova on Monday, Oct. 23, at 5:30 p.m. in Auditorium (IULM 6).

Born in Mosso (Biella), Ugo Nespolo graduated from the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin and later graduated in Modern Literature. His beginnings in the Italian art scene date back to the 1960s, to Pop Art, to the future Conceptualists and Poverists. His production is since the beginning characterized by an accentuated ironic and transgressive mark and a personal sense of fun that will always represent a sort of trademark of his art. In the 1970s Nespolo appropriates a second means of expression, cinema: particularly experimental, artist's cinema. He also begins experimenting with unusual techniques and materials. The 1980s represent the heart of the "American period": Ugo Nespolo spends part of the year in the States, which become the protagonists of his works. These years also saw the accumulation of experience in the field of applied art: this is evidenced by the approximately 50 posters he created for exhibitions and various events, the RAI calendar of '86, and the video clips, also for RAI.

Over the next three decades, solo exhibitions were dedicated to him all over the world: Bucharest, Valletta, Fukui, New York, Paris, Locarno, Beijing, Vilnius, Canton, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Siena, Florence, Jakarta, Tel Aviv, Pisa, Milan, Shanghai, Geneva. In the meantime, Nespolo took on important positions, such as that of consultant and coordinator of artistic communications in the stations of the Turin Subway, and President of the National Museum of Cinema, and continued his activity on national and international projects: we find his work for Expo 2015 in six railway stations between Turin Porta Susa and Rho Fiera, while in 2018 Giunti Publishing House - 150 years after the first edition - published The Adventures of Pinocchio illustrated with more than one hundred color plates by the artist.

After the awarding of the Master's degree ad Honorem, the inauguration of "TAM TAM Teatro delle Arti Mediali", the first installation of the Museo Diffuso della Comunicazione, in the lobby of IULM 1, will follow at 6:15 p.m. The project, conceived as a work in progress with the aim of transforming the campus into an open-air workshop of design and creativity, will also be realized thanks to the support and backing of a number of companies. Among the first to join are Mediaset, Ford and ANGAISA.