Enzo Mari

“Aesthetics without ethics are cosmetics”. This quote by Ulay couldn’t be more apt than for Enzo Mari, visual artist and creative philosopher, who is a psychologist of the form and sociologist of the function of an object, before he is a designer. Enzo Mari is never a passive interpretor of trends, as he himself defines the most recent generations, those of the marketing era, which followed the golden age of Italian design. However, the polemic enthusiasm of Enzo Mari isn’t simply rhetoric play, but rather the foundation of his line of thought and work. And it was this radical approach that made him a theoretical point of reference and an upstanding artist for whom “aesthetics is the objective of every design”. Spokesperson for the world of kinetic and programmed art, theorist of the function of aesthetic research and creator of “self-design” through easy-to-assemble furniture kits, Enzo Mari is the winner of four Compasso d’Oro awards, including one for career achievement, and his designs are displayed in the MoMA in New York. Enzo Mari is a complex, extraordinary individual, a noble, multifaceted figure, qualities which hadn’t been seen, perhaps, since the Renaissance.