8. Video interview with Nanda Vigo
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Studio visit of Nanda Vigo, Alberto Mattia Martini, Milan, 2016 - Video 19 min. 38 sec - Courtesy of Alberto Mattia Martini
Introduction to the interview by Alberto Mattia Martini.
It is well known that being a woman in a society like ours is not easy, especially if one chooses to become an artist in the 1950s. Yet Nanda Vigo was not fazed, and set about studying architecture, then visual art and design, with determination. The idea of light, which would later become a decisive source of inspiration for her entire oeuvre, came to her when she first saw the Casa del Fascio, in Como, designed by rationalist architect Giuseppe Terragni. After graduating in Lausanne, she settled in Milan, where art entered her life decisively and, I would say, completely: she collaborated with Giò Ponti, made friends with Lucio Fontana and became Piero Manzoni’s partner. Vigo also made contact with the ZERO group, or rather the ZERO Movement, as the artist herself was at pains to stress; a movement in which she was to become a key protagonist, as curator of the ZERO avantgarde 1965 exhibition in Lucio Fontana’s atelier. Many and important were the trips she made around the world, her projects, works, exhibitions and prizes. She was a woman with a capital “W” but, above all, an artist with a capital “A”.
This video interview is part of Alberto Mattia Martini’s project, StudioVisit Arte=Vita, which aims to present the key figures of the Italian contemporary art scene. These videos offer a glimpse of the artists’ life and their atelier, which we might consider to be the “place where everything originates”, the private space in which the artist often finds their creative inspiration and produces their works.
Alberto Mattia Martini is an art critic and exhibition curator, who has curated many major exhibitions in both public spaces and private galleries. He currently teaches the history and theory of methods of representation at the Brera Academy of Fine Art, in Milan. He was principal of the Rovereto Academy of Fine Art and artistic director of the Brescia Free Academy of Fine Art, where he also taught the history of contemporary and modern art. He writes for many publications, including: Flash Art, D’Ars, Artein, Espoarte and Artribune.com. He is also on the register of technical experts to the Court of Parma. He collaborated for a number of years with the world-renowned critic and founder of the nouveau réalisme art movement, Pierre Restany.
Light Tree, 1985
The Light Trees are covered with fragmented screens made up of shapes that belong to the primary language defined by Nanda Vigo with her cosmological alphabet: squares, rectangles and circles of fluted or frosted glass, which act as a filter to soften the light from the vertical neon tubes and highlight the symbolic growth of the tree.
Nanda Vigo, Light tree, 1985 - Painted iron, printed glass, halogen bulbs, neon - Courtesy of Stefano Galuzzi © Valérie Sadoun