Museums are slowly reopening in Italy after the long Coronavirus lockdown (over two months) and among the institutions ready to welcome visitors there is also the MACTE in Termoli, Italy, relaunching with a retrospective dedicated to Nanda Vigo. Sadly, though, Vigo will not be able to see it the museum reopening its doors as she passed away last Saturday.
Those who will venture in its spaces and who may not be familiar with Vigo's work will discover a space populated with luminous geometries and objects covered in reflective surfaces that wouldn't look out of place on the setting of a sci-fi film. Vigo was indeed a pioneer of futuristic light structures and architectures.
Born in 1936 in Milan, Vigo graduated from the Institute Polytechnique in Lausanne. After continuing her studies in San Francisco, she opened her studio in her hometown in 1959.
In the early '60s Vigo, who at the time was also influenced by the architecture of Giuseppe Terragni, started focusing on the dichotomy between conflict and harmony and light and space, and developed a personal research on light, transparency and immateriality. These research led her to the creation of the "cronotopi" in the early '60s.
The "cronotopi" were actually anticipated by a shocking solution to a spatial problem that Vigo presented at an architectural competition, a proposal for a "cemetery tower" where the cemetery of the future grew upwards on various floors. The artist then transformed this sci-fi graveyard into a structure with a metallic frame support on which industrial patterned glass was inserted.
These minimalist towers were not destined to a particular function or purpose, but they were designed for intellectual contemplation.
In those years there were quite a few avant-garde groups in Italy: the "Azimuth" group founded by Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani tended towards Fontana, while the kinetic-programmatic group "T" owed a lot to Bruno Munari.
Vigo sided with "Azimuth" and, being interested in exploring the cosmic horizons opened by Fontana's spatialism, she became a partner of the transnational ZERO group (she curated the 1965 ZERO show at Fontana's Milan studio that featured 28 artists).
She also continued her architectural projects, developing the interior design for the "ZERO House" (1959-62), and the interiors for the "Casa blu" (1967-72), "Casa nera" (1970) and "Casa gialla" (1970), as well as for the "Casa sotto la foglia" (House under a leaf) designed by Giò Ponti in 1965-69 in Malo, Vicenza. Her greatest architectural achievement remains the Museo Remo Brindisi at Lido di Spina (1967-1971).
In 1971 Vigo received the New York Award for Industrial Design for her Golden Gate lamp; the 1980s were characterized instead by a fascination for Postmodernism, while her later output returned to the seductiveness of neon, radiant and diffused light, and simple and dynamic forms.
Throughout her career Vigo had an interdisciplinary relationship with art, design, architecture and the environment and, since 2006, her work has been in the permanent collection of Milan's Triennale design museum.
From 2011 she took part in several group exhibitions all over the world, while last year the environments made by Nanda Vigo and Lucio Fontana were included in the show "Lucio Fontana. On the Threshold" at The Met Breuer and The Met Fifth Avenue, New York.
In 2019 her works were also featured in the exhibitions "Object of desire: Surrealism and Design 1924 - Today" at Vitra Design Museum and "Mondo Mendini - The World of Alessandro Mendini" at the Groninger Museum, while Milan's Palazzo Reale organised in the same year a retrospective entirely dedicated to her entitled "Light Project" that invited visitors to step into her sci-fi universe.
Her death was announced by her archive that will take forward the mission of promoting Vigo's work, introducing it to younger generations of art fans.
There's indeed still a lot to discover (and rediscover) about her and she may find new fame among fans of the vaporwave aesthetics and Start Trek aficionados as well: Vigo was indeed definitely into sci-fi and the future as proved by the logo of her archive - the silhouette of Star Trek's Enterprise - and you can bet she's now travelling towards that light that inspired her so much throughout her life.
Image credits for this post
1, 2 and 9. "Nanda Vigo.Light Project 2020" exhibition, MACTE, Termoli, Italy. Installation view.
3. Magazzini Fly, Milan, 1966
4. Nanda Vigo, Cronotopo, 1969, photograph by Emilio Tremolada
5. Trilogia, Light progressions: Homage to G. Ponti L. Fontana P. Manzoni 2, Nanda Vigo, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2019, Photo Credit Marco Poma, Courtesy Archivio Nanda Vigo
6. Nanda Vigo, "Global Chronotopic Experience", 2017, Spazio San Celso, Milan, photograph by Marco Poma
7. Exhibition "Sky tracks",Trigger of the Space, 2018, Galleria San Fedele, Milan, photograph by Marco Poma
8 and 10. Nanda Vigo, Courtesy Nanda Vigo Archive
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