Ugo Giletta


Ugo Giletta is an Italian artist.
WWW ugogiletta.it

Career

Giletta's exhibition activity began in the early 1980s with solo exhibitions such as Cavassa '87 and Il colore della forma.
Starting from the 1990s, Giletta appeared at institutional exhibitions in various locations in Piedmont and beyond: Tempo d’arte, Intermedia, Fantastica automazione, Proposte IX, Traiettorie sonore, From 200 to 2000.
In 1999, with the writer Nico Orengo, he produced the multimedia show The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy, freely adapted from the book of the same name by Tim Burton, presented at the Doge’s Palace in Genoa; his collaboration with poets and writers also includes the creation of some art books for Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, especially with Orengo and the poet Alda Merini.
Since 2000, Giletta has exhibited his works nationally and internationally in art galleries, institutions and museums in Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary, Austria, Germany, South Korea, China, and Singapore. In 2003, he was a finalist at the Mastroianni International Award. He took part in other exhibitions, among which, in 2016, the Challenging Beauty Insights of Italian Contemporary Art at the Parkview Green Museum, Beijing, an exhibition illustrating the contemporary scene of Italian art from the 1960s to the present day, from Poor Art to Transavantgarde, from the New Roman School to the generations of artists of the Nineties and Zero’s. MOVING TALES Racconti in movimento, an international selection of 30 video works from La Gaia Collection of Cuneo.
In 2019, at the Church of Saint Paul in Kotor, Montenegro, an exhibition entitled “The Face of the Other''”'' was organized for him by the Community of Italians in Montenegro, in collaboration with the Popular University of Trieste and under the patronage of the Embassy of Italy in Montenegro.
In the summer of 2022, he took part in the international program of Fondazione Aria dedicated to contemporary art and culture, the IX edition of Stills of Peace and Everyday Life – Italy and Armenia, as the Italian artist invited to exhibit his works at the Cisterns of Palazzo Acquaviva in Atri, in a show entitled “Apparitions, Bonds.”
In October 2025, on the occasion of the celebrations for “Napoli 2500”, he was invited to present several symbolic works at the National Museum of Capodimonte in the exhibition NAFRICA-MASKS curated by Simon Njami.

Artistic activity

Ugo Giletta's artistic career has been characterized by the use of various techniques including painting, drawing, sculpture and video installations. As Francesco Poli writes: "All his work, although diversified, merges into a poetic underlying restlessness that deals with the enigma of existence.”
The painting is realized with watercolor on paper and canvas of various sizes, while all the drawings are created in pastel. Ugo Giletta works almost exclusively with the human face, as Guido Curto noted, "... facial features lack a precise connotation, they are portraits that do not depict anyone, but represent only the fluid identity of our Western mass globalized society." Lea Mattarella describes these works as figures that outline lonely and isolated heads and faces in an indefinite emptiness that cannot be easily contextualized. Historian and art critic Lóránd Hegyi sums it up: "These are figurations that are simply present, in their objectivity, without the need for explanations as to whom they belong or where they come from. The fascinating journey exactly means delving into their uniqueness"
When Giletta uses the video in his installations, as well as in his sculptures, the figures are considered by critics as sad beings, painfully lost, forgotten, ruined. Giovanni Tesio writes in this regard: "... imprisoned inside a wholly inner language, they come from the emptiness and aspire to a shared silence." To emphasize the poetics of the artist’s entire work, Lóránd Hegyi adds: "... for this reason we can’t look at them without compassion, without empathy, since, in their essence, the slow process of disappearance, the unstoppable process of loss, acquires a poetically powerful form."

Exhibitions

  • NAFRICA-MASKS, 2025, curated by Simon Njami Museum and Royal Wood of Capodimonte Napoli Italy.
  • EVOCATIONS | A Nomadic Exhibition Project, curated by Lóránd Hegyi,
  • Apparizioni, Legami, curated by Antonio Zimarino,
  • Tre nuovi artisti della collezione del Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Piscina
  • Approcci al Concreto, curated by Lorand Hegyi,
  • Il volto dell’altro, curated by Marco Puntin, Republic of Montenegro
  • Dentro il disegno/Inside the Drawing, curated by Lorand Hegyi
  • Intriguing uncertainties
  • Ad Acqua
  • Art and Mission: George Wong 1952-2017
  • Uncertainties / Improbabilities
  • "Viennaline" curated_by
  • Volto:
  • The Artist's Voice
  • The Artist's Voice
  • Le spine della complessità. Arte e artisti tra globale e locale
  • Intrigantes Incertitudes
  • Challenging beauty Insights of Italian Contemporary Art
  • MOVING TALES Racconti in movimento
  • Significanti Incertezze
  • Lympha,
  • 40+1 Der zweite Teil.
  • Le naufrage.
  • Identità in divenire, piccole storie di infinita alterità
  • Almanach cabinet de dessin
  • Volti,
  • Experience of Empathy
  • 54ª Biennale di Venezia, Anteprima
  • Cabinet des dessins
  • Promenade n.4
  • Immagini dell'abbandono
  • Subversive Intensity of the Image
  • Fragile, lands of empathy
  • Collectors 1
  • L'immagine come rivelazione
  • Il volto dell'altro
  • Che peccato tu non possa assistere a questa felicità
  • RisAlto
  • 20 Proposte XX
  • Genius Loci
  • Una vetrina per la videoarte
  • Volti
  • La Via del sale
  • Finalisti premio internazionale Mastroianni
  • L'immagine e la parola.

Art books

  • Per Cesare Pavese, Poem by Nico Orengo, watercolors by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 33 copies, The edition number of the book is 7359. July 2008. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago
  • Perché, Poem by Alda Merini, watercolor by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 33 copies, The edition number of the book is 7247. April 2008. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago
  • Incontro, Poem by Giovanni Tesio, watercolors by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 43 copies, The edition number of the book is 6993. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago,
  • Omaggio a G, B. Bodoni, Poem by Nico Orengo, watercolors by Ugo Giletta, Printed in 43 copies, The edition number of the book is 6679. November 2006. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago,
  • Paesaggio, Ugo Giletta, Aquatint, a zinc matrix 255 x 325 mm, hand printed with a star press on Dassel's Hahnemühle round paper in one hundred and ten copies, signed and marked by the artist from 1 to 80 in Arabic numerals and from I to XXX in Roman numerals. There are also some numbered and hand watercolored prints by the artist. After the printing, the plates were punched. Franco Masoero printer in Turin, November 2004.
  • Tracce, three unpublished poems by Alda Merini, three watercolors, an acrylic and a drawing by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 35 copies numbered from 1/35 to 35/35 and 20 in Roman numerals numbered from I / XX to XX / XX plus an artist proof. All copies signed by the authors. Dimensions: 28x38.5x4.7 cm. November 2002. Edizioni Canopo, Prato.
  • Sogno e Realtà SMENS, biannual of New Woodcut, Rivarolo Canavese,
  • Il Volto, Poetry by Alda Merini, watercolors by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 33 copies, The edition number of the book is 3748. June 2000. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago,
  • l’Orata, la Triglia, l’Acciuga, 3 nursery rhymes by Nico Orengo, watercolors by Ugo Giletta. Printed in 43 copies, The edition number of the book is 3772. June 2000. Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago,
  • Artisti al muro, Posters for April 25, 2000, 99 numbered and signed folders, Edizione Spazioarte, Saluzzo
  • Biblioteca Luisia, Vigone, Ugo Giletta and Gilberto Zorio, folder of original engravings signed and marked by the artists from 1 to 80 in Arabic numbers and from I to XXX in Roman numbers.

Other books

  • Identità in divenire, piccole storie di infinita alterità, with a text by Ivana Mulatero and an interview with Ugo Giletta by Massimo Tantardini, Caraglio, Edizioni Marcovaldo, 2014
  • Immagini dell'abbandono, with texts by Lóránd Hegyi, Giovanni Tesio. Torino, Hapax Editore, 2011
  • Il Volto dell'Altro, with texts by Lorand Hegyi, Nico Orengo, Francesco Tomatis. Brescia, SHIN Production, 2009
  • Che peccato tu non possa assistere a questa felicità, with texts by Francesco Poli, Nico Orengo, Giovanni Tesio. Bra, Il Fondaco Edizioni, 2007
  • Volti, with texts by Sara Abram, Roberto Baravalle, Victor De Circasia, Guido Curto, Giovanni Tesio, Nico Orengo. Cuneo, Edizioni il Prisma, 2001
  • Proposte IX, text by Lucio Cabutti, Torino, Edizioni Regione Piemonte, 1993
  • Il colore della forma, text by Gerardo Pintus, Cuneo, Quadreria d'arte contemporanea, 1989

Ugo Giletta in museums

Permanent collections

  • Museo d’Arte Contemporanea all'aperto di Piscina To
  • GAM, Videoteca,

Opere acquisite da musei

  • Parkview Museum, Singapore
  • Parkview Green Museum, Beijing
  • Fondazione VAF. Frankfurt-am-Main
  • Collezione La Gaia, Busca
  • Le Musée de la Corse, Corte