Pier Paolo Calzolari (Bologna, November 21, 1943) is an Italian artist.
He lives and works in Lisbon (Portugal).
He began his artistic journey in Bologna, where he held his first solo exhibition in 1965 at the Sala Studio Bentivoglio. The following year, he abandoned traditional painting techniques, and in 1967, also at Studio Bentivoglio, he presented the performance titled Il filtro e benvenuto all’angelo (The Filter and Welcome to the Angel), which referenced the work of Pino Pascali. He soon became one of the leading figures of the Arte Povera movement.
Among the materials most frequently used by Calzolari are ice, margarine, molten lead, neon writings, metallic, organic, and natural materials—malleable ones, with a preference for relationships that imply the concept of transformation. He also adds sound as a temporal experience to physical objects. Within Arte Povera, he stands out for the poetic and literary quality of his works, with actions that border on performance (Canto sospeso, 1973).
He participated in the Venice Biennale in 1978, 1980, and 1990.
In 1992, he was featured at Documenta IX in Kassel.
During the 1980s, he returned to traditional painting, focusing on abstractions with metaphysical and existential themes, which had already been present in his earlier works, alongside elements of emotional depth.
In 1994, an important retrospective was dedicated to him at the Jeu de Paume National Gallery in Paris and at the Castello di Rivoli in Turin.