Enzo Mari

Enzo Mari was born in Novara in 1932. Italian artist and designer trained by studying at the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, in Milan, from 1952 to 1956. From the fifties he carries out his artistic activity, exhibits in personal and collective exhibitions in galleries and contemporary art museums. He is interested in various aspects of design including some the psychology of vision and programming in aesthetics.
Since the late 1950s he has also been involved in design, aware of the need to intervene on mass culture towards a global quality project. First in the field of personal formal research, and then in collaboration with numerous industries, in the sectors of graphics, publishing, industrial product and exhibition preparation.
Starting from 1963 he began teaching at the school of the Humanitarian Society of Milan, the first of various teaching experiences continued up to the 2000s in numerous institutes including the Politecnico di Milano, where he teaches at the faculties of Industrial Design and Architecture and in Parma. where he teaches History of Art.
In 1965 he curated the exhibition of optical, kinetic and programmed art at the Zagreb Biennale. He participates individually in various editions of the Venice Biennale and the Milan Triennale.
Enzo Mari establishes himself internationally as a representative designer of Italian design with the research and continuous experimentation of new forms and meanings of the object and the product, in contrast with the traditional schemes of industrial design.
In 1971 he participated with an intervention in the Italy: the New Domestic Landscape exhibition at the MoMA in New York. His unique position as an artist-designer is documented in the publications dedicated to his work and his contributions in interventions in important institutions, such as the ADI (Association for Industrial Design) which he chairs from 1976 to 1979.
Enzo Mari collaborates with various companies for which he designs various objects of use and furniture, including Danese, Zanotta, Zani & Zani, Alessi and Magis