MIRELLA BENTIVOGLIO WORKS

Mirella Bentivoglio was an Italian artist, sculptor, poet, critic, performer, and curator as well as the founder of verbo-visual research in Italy and worldwide.
Born in Klagenfurt (Austria) in 1922 to Italian parents, his father Bertarelli was a scientist at the University of Pavia. He spent his childhood years in Milan, while pursuing his studies in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and in the United Kingdom at the University of Sheffield and Cambridge until the outbreak of the Second World War, thus receiving not only a multilingual education but also an international education that he later perfectly expressed in his works.
He spends the rest of his life living and working in Rome, but often traveling for passion and work. He becomes a true icon of artistic femininity of his time, admired and sought after all over the world, and where they didn't seek him directly, he would arrive with a whirlwind of ideas.
In 1949, she married the law expert and writer Professor Ludovico Matteo Bentivoglio, whose surname she voluntarily decided to take and keep. Together they had three daughters, but the artist became a widow in 1980.
The innovative idea of combining images with words has been a continuous pursuit, revisited and revolutionized by Italian Futurism, which had already dared to unite word and image, but shunned everything feminine. However, the years of Futurism have passed, and Mirella Bentivoglio adds a feminine touch (though not necessarily feminist) to her works, masterfully joining the global neo-avant-garde art movements of the second half of the 20th century, even becoming a protagonist. She shares the ideals of the feminism of the 1960s and 1970s, but her activism never extends much beyond the confines of her books and her written and visual works."}
He collaborates with various and numerous national and international artists, always with extremely successful experiments.
From the very beginning, his art, as expressed in his own words, aims to unite words and letters, giving life to the so-called Concrete Poetry or Visual Poetry, freely combining and associating words and images, letters and visions according to certain patterns. The female presence is so predominant that it has become a true point of reference for gender art up to the present day.
Initially, Mirella Bentivoglio devoted herself to poetry, with her early collections such as Giardino and others published by Scheiwiller. After approaching art criticism, in 1968 she obtained the qualification to teach Aesthetics and Art History in Italian academies.
Starting from the 1960s, he moved towards a personal form of object-poetry, while from the 1970s onwards he gradually expanded his performances to action poetry and environmental poetry.
His verbo-visual research consists of creating genuine artistic interventions of a linguistic nature on various types of objects. An example of this is the artwork 'Oltre andare', a simple phrase, a short poem on a small square of marble made in 1995. The Litolattine, on the other hand, are made entirely of metal in 1998.
Mirella Bentivoglio's creativity also extends to canvas and sculpture. How can we forget L'Uovo di Gubbio, the Albero Capovolto, and the Libro-campo.
Among the poems to definitely remember are Gabbia, The Heart of the Obedient Consumer, and I Love You. The concept-object-word 'egg' in particular is showcased and used by Mirella Bentivoglio as an archetype, we could say, of the creation of everything and a symbol of origin. It is no coincidence that we have many themed works, besides the already famous one mentioned, such as Operation Orpheus (The Egg in the Cave), From Egg to Zero, Hyper Ovum, The Seed of O.
Ultimately, we can say that his is a game with language and objects, and with the fragmentation and displacement of both. A fragmentation of the very rules of art.