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SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Mario Merz Mario Merz (1925-2003) was born in Milan. During World War II he abandoned pursuit of a degree in medicine to join the anti-fascist movement “Giustizia e Libertà” (Justice and Freedom). In 1945 he was arrested while leafleting and spent a year in Turin’s prison where he executed numerous experimental drawings, made without ever removing the pencil point from the paper. He had his first solo exhibition in 1954, at the Galleria La Bussola in Turin. Beginning in the mid- 1960s his desire to work with the idea of the transmission of energy from the organic to the inorganic led him to create works where neon pierces objects of everyday use, such as an umbrella, a glass, a bone or his own raincoat. In 1967, critic Germano Celant coined the term “Arte Povera” and included Merz among the proponents of the new language. Merz’s first solo museum show in the United States was at the Walker Art Center in 1972, followed by a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in 1989, and a survey at MoCA, Los Angeles, also in 1989. Major exhibitions of the artist’s work include Museum Folkwang, Essen (1979), Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (1979), Whitechapel, London (1980), Kunsthalle, Basel (1975, 1981), Palazzo dei Congressi, San Marino (1983), Kunsthaus, Zurich (1985), Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art (1990), and the Gallerie dell’Academia, Venice (2015). Merz’s numerous honors included the Laurea honoris causa (2001) and the Praemium Imperiale (2003). His work can be found in numerous public and private collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Art Institute of Chicago; ARTIST ROOMS, National Galleries of Scotland and Tate; La Caixa Contemporary Art Collection; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Herbert Foundation, Ghent; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Mario Merz Selected Press SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Sam, Sherman. “Critics’ Pick: Museum of Cycladic Art.” artforum.com (Artforum), December 2015. “Numbers are prehistoric,” a small, thoughtful first survey of Mario Merz in Greece—curated by Paolo Colombo, presented by NEON— begins with Lumaca, 1970, a video by Gerry Schum of Merz drawing a spiral emanating from a snail, expanding the line of its shell into real space/time. This piece, installed on a table with bundles of branches behind it, forms part of the installation Foresta con video sul sentiero, (Forest with video on a path), 1995. Together they illustrate the notion of the progressive Fibonacci sequence (a mathematical theory that resembles many growth patterns in nature), an Mario Merz, Pittore in Africa (Painter in Africa), 1983, neon, 193 x 6”. idea that underpins much of Merz’s aesthetic philosophy. Imprisoned in 1945 for anti-Fascist activity, Merz began to draw. This exhibition manages to tease out the political aspect of Merz’s thinking through a scholarly display of works on paper that usually combine both writing and drawing. One wall is emblazoned with a series of statements, beginning with “1 Freedom to read in prison” and counting in 12 statements through the Fibonacci sequence to “144 Freedom not to believe a generalization.” Merz’s neons are more direct in terms of the politics of protest; a sharp contrast from the more poetic qualities of his other works. For example, Sciopero Generale (General Strike), 1970, is a line of white and red neon that states “General strike relative political action proclaimed relatively to art,” with the words “relative” and “relative to art” in red—thus highlighting a sense of urgency. And his response to discovering the lack of African artists exhibiting in the Venice Bienniale was to create the eponymous neon, Pittore in Africa (Painter in Africa), 1983, an emphatic gesture of solidarity with the unknown artists on that continent. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Shaw, Anny. “First museum exhibition in Greece for Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz.” theartnewspaper.com (The Art Newspaper), 26 October 2015. Mario Merz, installation view, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens (2015) © Natalia Tsoukala The Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz’s first ever exhibition in a Greek museum opened on 22 October in Athens. The show has been organised by Neon, a non-profit organisation founded by the Greek collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos, and the Fondazione Merz, which is preparing to publish the artist’s first catalogue raisonné, dedicated solely to Merz’s igloo sculptures, next autumn. One igloo work, Igloo con albero (1969-2002), is also included in the exhibition. Merz first started creating the domed structures in 1968 as a way of expressing his pre-occupation with the fundamental needs of existence—shelter, food and man’s relationship to nature. The circular shape of the igloo also relates to Merz’s long-held fascination with mathematical sequences, particularly the Fibonacci spiral, an exponential series of numbers that underlies the growth patterns of natural life. “Mario Merz made nature, numbers and politics co-exist, he is one of the most insightful social critics of the public realm,” says Elina Kountouri, the director of Neon. “His work resonates with the turbulent situation in Greece over the past five years, where the whole value system has been re-examined. Merz could never have predicted how instructive his work would be in today’s polarised Europe.” SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com A large section of the show is dedicated to Merz’s writings, which are treated for the first time as fully part of his artistic output. Neon writings, paintings and drawings are also included in “Mario Merz: Numbers are prehistoric,” which is open at the Museum of Cycladic Art until 31 January 2016. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Tasini, Laura. “Searching for Magic: An Unconventional Itinerary at the Venice Biennale and Collateral Events.” Sculpture, December 2015, pp. 14-15. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Holman, Martin. “Mario Merz.” Art Monthly, November 2014, p. 24. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com “Mario Merz.” Elephant, Autumn 2014, p. 26. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Dama, Francesco. “Beyond the Igloo: Mario Merz in London.” hyperallergic.com (Hyperallergic), 30 October 2014. Mario Merz, “Spostamenti della Terra e della Luna su un asse” (“Movements of the Earth and the moon on a axis”) (2003), metal tubes, glass, stone, neon, clamps, clay, 1000 cm x 600 cm x 300 cm (all photos © Mario Merz by SIAE, Courtesy Fondazione Merz unless otherwise indicated) Among the few Italian contemporary art movements that made a mark on the international scene in 20th century, Arte Povera is probably the most interesting. The term (literally “poor art”) was coined by art critic and curator Germano Celant in 1967 to define the poetics of the movement, which focused on the exploration of a wide range of common materials rather than employing the traditional bronze and marble. Wood, paper, wool, rags, twigs, soil, and sand are just some of the unconventional materials used by Arte Povera artists. As the Italian “economic miracle” of the 1950s was fading and the turmoils of the year 1968 were in the air, the movement gathered a dense group of artists that wanted to challenge the commercial system by putting an emphasis on the process of making art. It comes as no surprise that most of those artists were included in the landmark exhibition When Attitudes Become Form, curated by Harald Szeemann at Kunsthalle Bern (Switzerland), in 1969. The aim of that exhibition perfectly suited Arte Povera’s intent. Szeemann wanted to elevate the artistic process over its final product, changing the space of the museum into a sort of artist’s studio. Among the incredible group of artists featured in the show — including Joseph Kosuth, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris, and Bruce Nauman — there was Arte Povera affiliate Mario Merz. SPERONE WESTWATER 257 Bowery New York 10002 T + 1 212 999 7337 F + 1 212 999 7338 www.speronewestwater.com Pace London, in collaboration with the Fondazione Merz in Turin, has recently inaugurated a significant exhibition of the Italian artist’s works from the 1960s to 2003, the year he died. The show has the great merit of displaying iconic works next to lesser-known pieces. Merz’s passion for simple and natural materials is exemplified in the exhibition’s centerpiece, “Spostamenti della Terra e della Luna su un Asse” (“Movements of the Earth and the Moon on an Axis”) (2003), a three- dome installation and the last of its kind the artist made before his death. Merz began constructing such igloo structures, probably his most renowned works, in the late ’60s using a variety of materials. “Spostamenti…” features plates of stone and glass covering two intersecting dome structures that represent the relationship between the Earth and the Moon.