On May 16th, Nanda Vigo, artist and designer with a great passion for light, passed away
Born in Milan, Nanda Vigo studied in Switzerland and in the USA, and worked with artists such as Lucio Fontana and Piero Manzoni (who was also her partner).
An all-round creative, her work ranged from art to design to interior architecture. About her houses, she said they were built around light. Light guided the project; the architecture of the interiors was closely interwoven with light. The milestone of her architecture is the ZERO House, from 1959, the first project in which she experimented with light in the walls. As she explained, the ZERO House was her response to Scandinavian style. Frosted glass spaces between walls enclosed light, which was adjusted with a system of connections and switches. In 1965 Nanda Vigo worked on “The house under the leaf,” a project by Gio Ponti in Malo (Vicenza, Northern Italy), designing its spectacular interiors, while Remo Brindisi House Museum, in Lido di Spina, one of Ferrara’s seaside resorts, dates back to 1971.
Nanda Vigo and design
Her work as a designer entailed several collaborations with major Italian companies such as Acerbis and Driade. Her collaboration with Angelo Lelii and Arredoluce was very fecund, resulting in products that made the history of Made in Italy. The Golden Gate lamp by Arredoluce won the New York Industrial Design Award in 1971. She loved experimenting with contemporary material such as Perspex, which she integrated with neon lighting.
Countless exhibitions and installations marked all her life as an artist, from the exhibitions with group ZERO in the Sixties to Triennale up to the last one, in 2019, Light Project, curated by Marco Meneguzzo, at Palazzo Reale, in Milan (featured image).
