Marking the opening to the public of the ADI Design Museum in Milan (26 May 2021), the volume accompanies one of the inaugural exhibitions, dedicated to an extraordinary figure of Italian textile design and the winner of the Compasso d’Oro in 1962. The exhibition and the catalogue devoted to Renata Bonfanti present a complete selection of the works of the Vicenza-born artist, from her first hand-knotted long-pile carpets, strongly influenced by Informal Art, to the poetic “Algeria” collection in the late 1950s and the latest carpets woven on the mechanical loom.

A concern with technique, between tradition and innovation, has always been central to Bonfanti’s reflection. “I have always sought to organize my work so that the two techniques were interchangeable. I believe that an excessive interest, of an emotional nature, in manual production and the a priori rejection of new technologies can hinder research, just as it likewise seems absurd to claim that industrial production covers all the roles”(Renata Bonfanti, 1975).