26/05/2026
📚 While traditional publishing views the book mainly as a vehicle for information, the Italian Neo-Avantgarde recognized it as an autonomous, experimental "space" endowed with its own independent aesthetic code. The structural deconstruction of the book began with Futurism. Seminal works such as 'Zang Tum Tuuum' and 'Depero Futurista' broke down pragmatic typographic functions, transforming the physical object into a self-contained work of art.
In 1963 a multidisciplinary collective of artists, poets, and musicians founded “Gruppo 70” in Florence. Backed by the semiotic and theoretical frameworks of figures such as Umberto Eco, they engineered a new linguistic paradigm: visual poetry. In this medium, text and image undergo a semiotic fusion, merging into an inseparable structural unity.
“Gruppo 70” weaponized language as an ideological tool and intentionally disrupted classic layouts and traditional norms of book printing. The collective bypassed commercial publishing through restricted, signed, and numbered self-published editions.
The library of the KHI holds an interesting collection of “Gruppo 70” artists’ books: the magazine Lotta Poetica, Ancora delle poesie visive (1972) by Felice Piemontese, Pubbli-città (1974) by Lamberto Pignotti, Poesia Visiva (1974) by Luciano Ori, Poetry gets into life (1972) by Eugenio Miccini, Musica Madre (1973) by Giuseppe Chiarini and Maorilyn the End (1972) by Giuseppe Desiato and Stelio Maria Martini. These books are featured in the KHI Library’s new In Focus online exhibition “Visual poetry. The artist’s books of the Gruppo 70”.
➡️ https://www.khi.fi.it/en/aktuelles/ausstellungen/2026-05_im-fokus_poesia_visiva_en.php
Concept and coordination: Verena Gebhard
📷 Bärbel Reinhard (Fondazione Studio Marangoni)
