Lamberto Pignotti at 100: Two Exhibitions Explore Identity and Visual Poetry

Centenarian artist and poet Lamberto Pignotti (born 1926 in Florence) is celebrated with two concurrent exhibitions in 2026. 'Pignotti 100. Pop-esie visive' runs until October 18 at the Mart in Rovereto, in collaboration with Collegio Cairoli of Pavia. The double solo show 'Identikit di Pignotti e Hogre', curated by Marco Giovenale, opens May 9 at Galleria Bianco Contemporaneo in Rome. Pignotti co-founded Gruppo '70 in Florence in 1963 with Eugenio Miccini, a movement uniting visual poets, artists, and musicians. The Rome exhibition draws from Pignotti's archive of envelopes addressed to him with varied titles (architect, artist, writer, poet, professor, painter) and altered names (Alberto, Lorenzo, Mario, Giuseppe), revealing his fragmented identity against Hogre's anonymity. Pignotti describes his creative drive as 'ricreazione'—a playful escape from boredom—and discusses his early exposure to art through his father, painter Ugo Pignotti, and his wartime reading at Biblioteca Marucelliana. He moved to Rome in 1968.