Ugo Nespolo

On October 23, 2023, IULM University conferred the "honorary" degree of the University Master's in Management of Artistic and Cultural Resources to artist Ugo Nespolo.

At the opening of the ceremony, Prof. Giovanni Puglisi-also Scientific Director of the Master's degree-said how the meeting with Nespolo was "a consecration of the project of the Master's Degree in Management of Artistic and Cultural Resources: to educate to beauty, which is declined through the multiplicities of all artistic languages. The authorial humility allowed Nespolo to construct a message from the decomposition of an artistic existing, skillfully metabolized. Our students will know how to draw from the vitality of this artist stimulus and courage to give their future profession content and depth."

The ceremony continued with the laudation of Prof. Vincenzo Trione, who, motivating the Master's Degree honoris causa to the artist, said, "Among the heretical animators of Arte Povera, among the most original protagonists of Italian Pop Art, but also a filmmaker and theorist, Ugo Nespolo is among the last heirs of what has been called 'mass avant-garde.' A conscious heir of futurism, capable of moving across non-contiguous registers, media and territories (painting, sculpture, graphics, design, cinema, television), committed to interweaving, in the footsteps of a noble twentieth-century tradition, the experience of making with the practice of critical writing, Nespolo has made continuous raids between practices and languages, without ever betraying his unmistakable style, founded on bright and garish colors, on respect for recognizability, on the desire to resolve every figure in a popular and childlike key. But, above all, on the wisdom of constructing entertaining visual narratives."

"I am thrilled to be here, in what I consider to be one of the most beautiful campuses I have ever visited," Maestro Ugo Nespolo said instead, in his lectio magistralis. It is a truly extraordinary place, not only for its structure but also for the programs it presents. For this I consider myself most honored. Regarding the work created for the University lobby, you may wonder: why work with a theater? Why use moving objects? Because the idea really comes from portable literature: this little theater is an extension of a puppet theater that I used to do as a child. It's kind of the same concept: a little theater, but touching on the arts that have to do with you, with the university. The message I want to send is not to get caught up in the cliché, in what should be done. It is much more important to be critical and take the wrong way, the wrong path. Don't think that to make the market happy you have to repeat what has already worked, because it is not true that what costs money is worth it: what costs money, costs money. So never be afraid to be daring, to go inside the disciplines: for example, I have worked a lot with film, but also with television. The artist must be truly free."