Extra DRY is a project of collaboration between Peep-Hole and DRY Cocktails & Pizza. The initiative comes from a shared desire to take contemporary art out of its usual places and experiment with its possible insertion in different contexts. For the third consecutive season, videos will be shown by Anna Valeria Borsari, Ugo La Pietra, Luca Maria Patella and Franco Vaccari, each for a period of three months.
Ugo La Pietra presents La grande occasione (1973), Per oggi basta! (1974), and Interventi pubblici per la città di Milano (1979).

La grande occasione (The Big Opportunity)
35 mm film, b+w
13’42’’, 1973
The film was shot inside a completely empty Milan Triennale, where the artist had his “big opportunity” to design it in keeping with his own aspirations. The work is a critique of institutions, seen as being incapable of generating a cultural debate that has any true impact on reality.

Per oggi basta! (Enough for Today!)
16 mm film, b+w
14’, 1974
On an autobiographical level, the film expresses the difficulties encountered by the artist when he seeks “paths” outside the “system”.The attempt to get out of the urban cage and to extend out to “the void” takes the form of flight from the city to the countryside, abruptly interrupted by the phrase: “Ugo La Pietra, enough for today!”

Interventi pubblici per la città di Milano (Public Projects for the City of Milan)
16 mm film, color
6’29’’, 1979
The film is an ironic take on the presence of poles and chains in urban furnishings. Transforming urban furniture into domestic decor, La Pietra illustrates the claim that “habitation means being at home everywhere”.

Ugo La Pietra was born in Bussi sul Tirino (Pescara) in 1938. He lives and works in Milan. He has always described himself as a “researcher” of visual arts and communication. He has presented his research through many exhibitions both in Italy and abroad. He has curated a number of exhibitions at the Triennale di Milano, the Venice Biennale, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, the FRAC Museum in Orléans, the Ceramics Museum in Faenza, and the Ragghianti Foundation in Lucca. He was awarded the Compasso d’Oro in 1979. His research experience in architecture and design led him to develop such themes as “La casa telematica” (MoMA, New York, 1972 – Fiera di Milano, 1983), “Rapporto tra Spazio reale e Spazio virtuale” (Triennale di Milano, 1979, 1992), “Cultura Balneare” (Cattolica Cultural Centre, 1985, 1995). Through his works, research, writing and teaching, he has always supported design that is full of meaning, for design that is “territorial” rather than internationalist. www.ugolapietra.com