Biography

Born in Florence in 1926, he moved to Rome in 1968 where he still lives today. Already active in the ’50s with his first literary tests in the poetic field, in the early ’60s he created the first visual poetic collages linked to the concept of technological poetry. The term, which appeared for the first time in an essay in 1962 in the magazine “Questo ed altro” refers to the new artistic genre (of which he is the founder) based on the reuse of words associated with images taken from the field of mass communications such as periodicals, weekly, newspapers, etc.. in which alludes to a new artistic genre. The aim is twofold: to use a language dedicated to social use and at the same time exorcise its power to make a sort of aesthetic compensation. From this research focused on social language, which was later called visual poetry, was born in 1963 the Group 70 founded in Florence by the same Pignotti and Eugenio Miccini. In 1965 he edited the first anthology of the movement entitled “Visual Poems” published in 4 volumes by Sampietro of Bologna.  Between ’66 and ’68, in search of the fundamental elements of popular culture, the series of stamps was born. During the following 70’s his experiments have as protagonist images taken from newspapers to induce the user to focus on photography regardless of the occasion that produced it, as happens in the series of De-compositions. Since the 1980s his attention has focused on the female figure. Pignotti intervenes with his own writing on images of young women alluring. Pignotti’s experiments are translated into: “Poems and no poems”, “cine-poems”, logo-musical cassettes, plastic books, poems to touch, “chewing poems”, “drink-poems” and, of course, “visual poems” in the form of collages or interventions on news, fashion and advertising photos.

Main exhibitions

Lamberto Pignotti is present in all the international exhibitions of Visual Poetry of the last twenty years including: “Dadaism and Dadaisms (Verona, 1997), “Interrupted Paths” (Bassano del Grappa, 2000), Visual Poetry: Modern Art from Italy, Millwaukee, Wisconsin (USA), 2005, La parola nell’arte, MART Rovereto, 2007, Futurismo 1909-2009, Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2009, Lotta Poetica, Fondazione Berardelli, Brescia, 2009, La collezione, Museo Pecci, Prato, 2009, Poesia visiva/What to do with poetry, MART, Rovereto, 2010, Prix Littéraire Bernard Heidsieck – Centre Pompidou – Mention Speciale Fondazione Bonotto 2017, “Cinquant’anni di inquietudine”, Galleria Clivio, Milan, 2016, “Il mondo? Where?”, Galleria Clivio, Milan 2017.