Terreno di Montagna

If Tappeto-Natura is, for Gilardi, a real and true “aesthetic object that is practically usable,” which assumes its fuller significance only through the relationship with the body and the mind of those who use it, Rotolo di Tappeto-Natura reinforced this concept in 1966. It is a roll—an incredibly long Nature-Carpet, wrapped up around a large reel—which is unrolled and presented to the public in all of its expressive force.

The viewer would decide how much of nature they wanted to purchase because it is art sold by the meter. Just like a carpet, a bed, or a painting, it is free, a democratic art, which acquires its approach from the industrial world, as if it were fabric or wall-to-wall carpeting.

In reality, it is the creation of an artist who wants to release his work from the exclusivity of an elite object and make it art for all, in spite of the fact that it wasn’t a multiple but rather a unique work. Gilardi presented these rolls at the Fischbach Gallery in New York in September 1967, to the critical acclaim of the public and critics. Terreno di montagna—with plenty of herbs, small flowers, and thawing snow—was one of the works exhibited there, amidst other carpet rolls.