Artists portfolio: Mario Merz, painter, sculptor, manipulator and alchemist

Mario Merz was born in Milan on 1 January 1925 into a family of Swiss origin and grew up in Turin. During the war he left the Faculty of Medicine and joined the anti-fascist movement “Giustizia e Libertà. In 1945, imprisoned for a year in the Carceri Nuove in Turin, he made drawings experimenting with a continuous graphic stroke, without ever taking the tip of the pencil off the paper. In 1954 he held his first one-man show at the Galleria La Bussola in Turin, where he exhibited drawings and paintings whose subjects refer to the organic universe and from which emerges his knowledge of the Informal and the language of American Abstract Expressionism. In 1959 he married Marisa, an artist who would become his inseparable companion and in August 1960 his daughter Beatrice was born. The couple moved to Switzerland, then to Pisa, to return to Turin where Merz created a series of "projecting structures", volumetric works intended as a possible fusion of the expressive means of painting and sculpture. He participates in group exhibitions in Italy and abroad including the Society' Promoter of Fine Arts in Turin.

In the middle of the sixties he began to abandon painting to experiment with different materials, such as i neon tubes, with which he perforated the surface of the canvases to symbolize an infusion of energy, or iron, wax and stone, with which he experimented with the first three-dimensional assemblages, the "volumetric paintings". A path that leads him in 1967 to be part of the movement ofPoor art, baptized by the critic Germano Celant, which includes among others Michelangelo Pistoletto, Giuseppe Penon, Lucian FabroAlighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Giulio Paolini. A group – writes Laura Click – which arises from the commune opposition towards the capitalist system and industrial development. The artists want to go back to the essence of things, show the objects for what they are, in their authenticity and poor materials are chosen in their pure state, before any form of contamination, such as glass, iron, earth, wood. In the 1968 the creative instinct of Merz, who liked to define himself as “manipulate and alkyst”, gives life to the first ones igloo which become a fixed constant in his artistic production, as well as the series of Fibonacci. One of the first is theIgloo with tree of the 1968-69, the hemisphere recalls the first models of primitive dwellings but not only, it also recalls the primordial conception that human beings had of the celestial vault, a large sphere above our heads.

With the adoption of the igloo shape, around 1968, the definitive detachment from the two-dimensional plane of the wall took place. The first igloos are presented at the Deposito d'Arte Presente in Turin. Over the years he produces each piece using the most varied materials, each time developing new relationships with the contexts encountered. "For my father, the igloo was a place of sharing - says Beatrice Merz, daughter of the artist and president of the Merz Foundation - and the message he wanted to convey was that of man's relationship between inside and outside, between an intimate space such as the home and a larger one such as nature or the urban one. In fact, all the elements that make up the igloos are also linked to human work: from the earth to the factory, from architecture to poetry”.

Mario Merz defined himself as an artist “vagabond”, therefore the igloo – underlines Laura Click – idealizes the perfect home for this nomadic lifestyle. Usually Merz loved to enrich these structures with native elements characteristic of the place where they were built. In the 1970 begins his interest in the great Pisan mathematician, of the thirteenth century, Fibonacci and for formulas invented by him concerning the mathematical sequence, where each number corresponds to the sum of the previous ones. The artist has managed to make the observer appreciate the particularity of this calculation. To represent the theories of the medieval scientist, Merz uses the sequence of numbers and the energy form of spiral. He then inserts motorcycles, newspapers, tables and figurative elements such as animals and characters drawn from mythology into his works. In Berlin, where he stayed for a year in 1973, as a guest of the Berliner artist program, directs his research on the theme of tables, understood as unifying elements, fundamental for the construction of a possible "Fibonacci House". During the eighties the pictorial repertoire is enriched with images of primitive, "terrible" and nocturnal animals.

Several times invited to the Venice Biennale, to Documenta Kassel and in important Italian exhibitions e foreign, his works are present in the most prestigious international public and private collections and exhibited in museums around the world. He has received numerous honors, including an honorary degree from Ladies of Bologna (2001) and the Praemium Imperial from Japan Compaction Association, considered the Oscar of contemporary art in 2003. He died in Milan in November 2003

Activities exhibition

Major group shows include Kunsthalle, Bern (1969), Tokyo Biennial (1970), Art museum, Lucerne (1970), Documenta 5, Kassel (1972), Venice Biennale (1972). He holds his first solo show in the United States at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1972). The first solo exhibition in a European museum is at Kunsthalle of Basel, followed by the exhibition at theInstitute of Contemporary Art, London (1975). He participates in the Venice Biennale (1976 and 1978). Important retrospectives follow one another in international museums including Museum Folkwang, Essen, Urban of abbemuseum Eindhoven (1979) Whitechapel, London (1980), ARC/Museum d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris (1981), Kunsthalle, Basel (1981), Modern The museum, Stockholm, Palazzo dei Congressi, San Marino (1983), Art house Zurich (1985) and among the group shows he participates in the Sydney Biennale (1979), Documenta 7, (1982), Venice Biennale (1986). Accolades include the Arnold Award Bode, Kassel (1981) and the Oscar award Kokoschka, Vienna (1983). His writings are published in I want to make a book right away (1985), collection edited by Beatrice Merz.
He creates numerous installations in outdoor spaces in Turin, Paris, Geneva, Sonsbecka e Münster and large-scale works at the Museum of Capodimonte, to the CAPC Museum of art Contemporaneous, Bordeaux and the Chapel St. Louis for the Salpêtrière, Paris (1987). International acknowledgments include solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, New York (1989), at the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, at the Luigi Pecci Center, Prato (1990) and at the Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art, Trento (1995) and the invitations to create installations for public spaces, including the Berlin underground, the Zurich train station, the Strasbourg tram line. Other important appointments of these years include Documenta IX Kassel (1992), Venice Biennale (1997).

In new personal exhibitions he develops the theme "Casa Fibonacci", as in the exhibition at Foundation Serralves, Porto (1999). Wide prominence is given to the practice of drawing, which becomes the protagonist of a series of large-scale installations. He exhibits at the Carré d'Art Museum of art Contemporaneous, Nîmes (2000) and exhibits for the first time in Latin America with a personal exhibition at the Foundation BowBuenos Aires (2002). Participate in Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972 (2001), the first retrospective on Arte Povera in the UK organized by the Tate Modern of London and from Walker Minneapolis Art Center. The permanent installation was inaugurated on 6 November 2002 Igloo fountain for the Passante Ferroviario of the city of Turin.

In October 2018 the almost 6 thousand square meters of theHangarBicocca I'm from Milan literally invaded by thirty igloos from some of the most important institutions in the world: the Museum National Art Gallery Queen Sofia of Madrid, the Tate Modern of London, the Hamburger Station of Berlin and the Van abbemuseum of Eindhoven. An extraordinary exhibition that revived the great solo exhibition curated by Harald Szemann in the 1985 at Art house of Zurich.

Transfer market e Pricing

If we limited ourselves to the brilliant results of international auctions to try to understand Mario Merz's market, we would not do a good job. The works of the great Master who passed away in 2003, the leading protagonist of the Arte Povera Movement, follow other paths, which pass mainly from his historic reference galleries with the watchful and attentive eye of the Foundation led by his daughter Beatrice (“It is evident that the reputation of our foundation influences the market variables”. Second ArtpriceSince 2000, almost 500 Merz works of various types have been auctioned with a percentage of sales exceeding 80%. Turnovers are respectable, on average always above 2 million dollars a year (2014 was the top year with 2,5 million). But examining the list of works passed at auction, one discovers that very few historic works have been auctioned and that those few have made millions. To purchase one of these works, many of which are in the hands of private public bodies and foundations, there is a long waiting list of collectors at the artist's reference galleries. At ART Basel in 2015 the Gallery Gladstone of New York proudly displayed two igloos, the most sought-after subject by collectors on the market. Absolutely confidential prices but the usual well-informed spoke of two million euros. From Konrad Fisher, from Dusseldorf and Berlin, were offered two paintings by Merz from the 50s (prior to the "turning point" poverist). The first (Gas station) was sold to 180mila euros, the other (Senza titolo) to 250mila euros. The same gallery non 2010, again at Art Basel, he presented an igloo for 1 million euros.

Gallery: Gladstone of New York, Sperone Westwater with offices in New York and Lugano, Konrad Fisher in Dusseldorf and Berlin, Pace in London.

TOP Price in it: Untitled (Fibonacci) – Installation (Caiman crocodylia – replies, neon tubing, wire, glass and transformer) created by the artist in 1977 was sold for 1.335.674 euros (including royalties) by Christie's New York in November 2017, nearly triple the estimate. little caiman,  light installation (taxidermied caiman crocodile and neon) from 1979 has changed hands since Christie's in London at €1.302.455 (double the estimate) in October 2015. Also from Christie's London, in February 2005, "Igloo Subject (dropdown menu)cache-toi",  dated 1968-1977 – Light installation (aluminum material, c-clamps, mesh, glass, neon, transformer) stopped the auctioneer's hammer at 1.150.855 euros, doubling the estimates.

Cover image:

Mario Merz.

Igloos. Exhibition view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan 2018

Courtesy Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan.

Photo Renato Ghiazza © Mario Merz