Nanda Vigo, the inner space

C1. Trigger of the Space

“I have always loved art so whole-heartedly t hat it seems impossible for me to distinguish the everyday object from its artistic influence”
Nanda Vigo
There’s Design and Design, but how about artistic Design ?
Milan, 1st October 1993

Nanda Vigo, Trigger of the Space, 1974 - Mirror, neon - Courtesy of private collection, Milan & Courtesy of Archivio Nanda Vigo, Milan © Valérie Sadoun

This second part of the exhibition presents the materialization of Nanda Vigo’s mystical research. From 1972, the artist embarked on an esoteric journey that drew on her many experiences among non-European cultures, in places like Egypt, Iran, India, Nepal and Mexico. The richness of these experiences led her to develop and incorporate a spiritual dimension in her creations. She discovered symbolic shapes and signs, which she used to compose an alphabet that enriched her personal language: the triangle, square, rectangle and circle, for her works in two dimensions; the pyramid, cube, sphere and cylinder, for her three-dimensional pieces.

In her text Exoteric Gate (attraverso il sogno cosmico) (1976), Nanda Vigo presents a trilogy on three planes, between the real, the unreal and the transcendent. Three states underpinning her research that are triggered by reflective surfaces, although it is impossible “to determine the exact moment where the unreal becomes real, and takes on the transcendent appearance of illusion.”

Through the series of works titled Trigger of the Space, which she began in the 1970s, Nanda Vigo modulated and modified our concept of space-time. These pyramidal light sculptures with spectacular reflections are made using mirrors and neon lights. They are like trampolines to new worlds, bridges to the vast, unknown universe. They are not contemplative objects, to be viewed head-on like a painting or statue. They must be experienced internally, like spaces, incorporating our own sensory experiences. The Trigger of the Space series creates an interaction with viewers, who become at the same time producers of the work – their reflections interact with the space, which is reflected on the surfaces of the mirror object.