Mirella
Bentivoglio

Between logos, object and body

The artistic practice of Mirella Bentivoglio (1922-2017) defied classification, moving freely between poetry, the visual arts, performance, design and a theoretical reflection on language

It is within this light that FENDI collaborates with Archivio Mirella Bentivoglio, fostering a dialogue between the artist's legacy and the House's excellence

An iconographic exploration of words and the infinite possibilities of variation in language, drawing from the artist's phrases and designs such as NOIa (a play on the Italian words for us and boredom)

“I construct verbal objects. The piece of jewelry is an object. I resort to its form every so often for the special meanings that I assign to the object in relation to the word. Put in semiological terms, jewelry for me is a ‘sign.’ I don’t make jewelry contingent on my work, but creations of visual poetry that in some cases take the form of jewelry and can be worn.”

Mirella Bentivoglio

A key figure in Italian and international concrete and visual poetry, Bentivoglio pursued a multifaceted line of research that called into question the distinction between word and image, sign and significance, object and body   

Shaped by an open, multilingual cultural context,  the artist naturally engaged with the neo-avant-garde movements of the 1960s and 1970s, drawing on studies in linguistics and communication