Mario Merz

Italy, 1925 - 2003

One of the most renowned artists of the Arte Povera movement, his work has been collected by museums all around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Tate Modern in London, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid and Centre Pompidou in Paris. Among his most recent exhibitions: Città irreale, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice (2015); Mario Merz: Igloos, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2018); Mario Merz. Time Is Mute, Retiro Park, Palacio de Velázquez, Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid (2019); Mario Merz, long-term view, Dia Beacon, New York (2020); Marisa and Mario Merz. A pencil point can surpass consciousness, Merz Foundation, Turin (2021).

The numerous honours and prizes received during the course of his career increased in October 2003 with the Praemium Imperiale for sculpture from the Japan Art Association.

Using, together or separately, charcoal for the outlines and oil, tempera, enamel and spray-paint, Merz painted several large pictures of animals which he imparted with the dignity of creatures belonging to mythology. Merz’s invented bestiary, imbued with symbolic meanings, included animals such as hawks, crocodiles, iguanas, rhinoceroses, lions, tigers, bisons, geckos, owls and turtles. Through these archetypal images, the artist represented his idea of nature, animistic, sublime and capable of making us glimpse the immensity and the unknown.

Presented by Giorgio Persano.