Dadamaino

Born Eduarda Emilia Maino in Milan in 1930, Dadamaino trained as a doctor before turning to art. In 1958, she cut a large oval out of a monochrome canvas: the Volumi no longer present an image but reveal what lies behind it, making the wall and surrounding space part of the work. She belonged to the Milanese avant-garde around Lucio Fontana and was close to Piero Manzoni and Enrico Castellani, founders of the journal Azimuth and the gallery Azimut, where she exhibited in 1960. Her work soon entered into dialogue with the wider European network of artists associated with ZERO.

The Volumi a moduli sfasati (1960) layer sheets of perforated plastic film so that the pattern never settles; the Oggetti ottici dinamici of the following years set small aluminium tiles in visual motion through the changing light and position of the viewer. In the late 1970s, she turned to L’Alfabeto della Mente, fields of invented signs repeated by hand — a writing that says nothing and can only be looked at. She died in Milan in 2004.

Across four decades, the underlying pursuit remained remarkably consistent: to move beyond representation and return the act of seeing to the viewer.