Nanda Vigo, the inner space

Bio. WHO IS NANDA VIGO?

Extract, Studio visit of Nanda Vigo, Alberto Mattia Martini, 2016, Milan - Video 19 min. 38 sec - Courtesy of Alberto Mattia Martini

« Identificazione: incerta
Architetto: riduttivo
Artista: riduttivo
Designer: riduttivo
Pioneer: maybe
Anyway: Nanda Vigo »

A native from Milan and trained at the EPFL, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Nanda Vigo (1936-2020) stood out in the 1960s for her transversal approach to the arts, architecture and design. A major figure in the Italian avant-garde art scene, she has always favoured the experimentation and the exploration.

From 1959, she has attended the studio of Lucio Fontana, before getting closer to the artists Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, who founded the Azimuth gallery in Milan. It was during this period that she discovered the artists and places of the ZERO movement in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Between 1964 and 1966, she participated in numerous ZERO exhibitions in Europe; in 1965, she organized the legendary Zero avantgarde exhibition in Lucio Fontana’s studio in Milan.

Between 1965 and 1968, she signed the interior of Lo Scarabeo sotto la foglia, a house developed from initial plans by Gio Ponti and built by Giobatta Meneguzzo in Malo in northern Italy. In 1971, she received the New York Award for Industrial Design, for the Golden Gate lamp produced by Arredoluce and carried out one of her most emblematic projects for the Casa Museo Remo Brindisi in Lido di Spina. In 1976, she won the Saint-Gobain first prize for glass design, and in 1982 she took part in the 40t h Venice Biennale.

Nanda Vigo’s creations are permanently presented at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, in the collection of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at the Museo del Novecento in Milan and at the Castello di Rivoli. In 2014, she exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum in New York as part of the retrospective dedicated to ZERO. In 2015, within the Zero. Die Internationale Kunstbewegung der 50er und 60er Jahre exhibition program, she exhibited at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin and at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.