November 9, 2003

We learn more about Mario Merz (January 1, 1925 to November 9, 2003), from a TLS article, in which Mika Ross-Southall "finds serenity and menace in the works of Mario Merz".

'...[This Italian artist was] a leading figure of the Italian avant-garde movement "Arte Povera," first began to draw in prison, after being arrested in 1945 for his involvement with an anti-Facist group in Turin. He recorded his cell mate’s beard in continuous spirals, often without lifting his pencil off the paper. After his release, he painted leaves, animals and biomorphic shapes in a colourful Expressionist style. It wasn’t until the 1960s, though, that he began creating the three-dimensional works – using everyday objects and materials, such as wood, wool, glass, fruit, umbrellas and newspaper – for which he became famous.

'“It is necessary to use anything whatsoever from life in art”, Merz said, “not to reject things because one thinks that life and art are mutually exclusive.” This sentiment is clear in the twelve pieces inspired by the protest movements of 1968, which are currently on show at the Fondazione Merz in Turin. (The gallery, set up by Merz and his daughter Beatrice in a sensitively converted Lancia car factory, opened in 2005 – two years after Merz died – to provide a place for showcasing his work and its continuous engagement with contemporary artists.)
...
'Merz’s fascination with the Fibonacci sequence is seen ... in “A real sum is a sum of people” (1972), a playful work which features a row of ten black-and-white photographs of the same interior of a pub in Kentish Town, London. The first photograph – which has no neon number beside it and it is empty of people – feels static. We concentrate on the shiny bar, the 1970s floral wallpaper and the boxy television high up on one wall. But in the next photograph – marked with a neon number “1” – there is a barman making a drink. The photograph after this – also with a “1” – sees a new barman enter, while the previous one is obscured in shadow. “2” has them working side-by-side behind the bar. In “3”, they are joined by a customer, Merz himself, sitting on a stool. In “5”, we spot two new customers among the group. And so on, until the last – “34” – in which the small pub is so crowded that some people are represented merely by silhouettes. “It’s not a multiplication”, Merz once explained, “but the proliferation of a single unit.”

'Other works here aren’t so convivial. In “Salamino” (1969), a roll of quilted calico hanging vertically on the wall is pierced by a blue neon strip-light. It looks like pathetically skewered human flesh, perhaps the sorry result of its own (capitalist) making. The same strip-light appears in “Bicchiere trapassato” (1967), this time perforating the sides of a drinking glass. Beautifully refracted light shines in an arc behind it, and inside, the tumbler’s glow haloes a small amount of dust gathered (unintentionally) at the bottom.

'Merz pushes the poetic possibilities of natural and man-made materials further in his iconic igloo structures – a nod to primordial architecture, as well as to our place in the world – two of which take centre stage here. “Is space bent or straight?” (1973) is made from a simple metal frame lined with shards of glass, which are held precariously in position by bolts and monster-green blobs of mastic. A beige Olivetti typewriter has been placed on the floor inside, with a sheet of paper half-loaded in it. “Igloo di Giap” (1968), on the other hand, is densely covered in cracked red clay; wrapped around this is a phrase – written in Italian, illuminated in neon – by the Vietnamese General Võ Nguyên Giáp: “If the enemy concentrates, it loses ground, if it disperses, it loses strength”. These “big installation works”, Beatrice tells me, “were born inside the exhibition spaces”; another photograph in a display case shows Merz sitting in the middle of “Is space bent or straight?” while it is being erected....'

The book below presents drawings by Merz. The cover art does not convey feline to me, but the title gets us into my blog.

Mario Merz's The Cat That Walks Through the Garden Is My Doctor (2001) contains also the writing of Alain Cueff and Guy Tosatto. Or we could look for Il Gatto Che Attraversa il Giardino è il Mio Dottore .