Mirella Bentivoglio, artist and poet, dies at 95 in Rome

Mirella Bentivoglio, an Italian artist, poet, and performer, died in Rome on March 23, 2017, just days before her 95th birthday. Born in Klagenfurt, Austria, on March 28, 1922, she published her first poetry collection, Giardino, in 1943 with Vanni Scheiwiller. In the 1960s, she began integrating words with images, collage, and graphic techniques. Her work evolved from concrete poetry to visual poetry and object-poetry, where she combined language with objects and environments. Bentivoglio was a strong advocate for women in art, curating the landmark exhibition Materializzazione del linguaggio at the 1978 Venice Biennale, featuring 80 women artists. Her work was shown internationally at Documenta Kassel, MoMA, the Italian Cultural Institute of New York, the São Paulo Biennial, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington. In 2011, she donated her extensive archive of women's art to the Mart in Rovereto.