Marisa Merz (1926–2019) was one of many main figures within the post-war Italian artwork scene. In 2013, she was awarded the Golden Lion for her life’s work on the fifty fifth Venice Biennale. Right now she is taken into account the one lady among the many major representatives of Arte Povera. Her refined, highly effective works comprise quite a few references to European artwork historical past, in addition to many on a regular basis supplies and methods.
The one lady within the circle of Arte Povera
From aluminium to clay, from copper to nylon, from wax to material – Marisa Merz’s works are characterised by their ‘poor’ supplies. They mirror her shut relationship with the group of the novel Arte Povera artwork motion across the Italian artists Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Pino Pascali, Giulio Paolini, Emilio Prini and her husband Mario Merz, which developed in a turbulent post-industrial Italy within the late Sixties. Marisa Merz shared along with her colleagues her curiosity in uncooked supplies, within the relationship of sculpture—in her case the physique, particularly the physique learn as feminine—with area, in addition to the connection between artwork and life. This led her to develop an autonomous inventive place: her work stands out for its silence, poetry and seek for the fragility of artwork and life. On this approach a resolutely open physique of labor was created over fifty years.
“The artist already has a longtime function, like that of a spouse or a son. However I don’t establish with these roles, separating roles, lists…”
—Marisa Merz, 1985
Faces of gold and earth
Marisa Merz labored in collection, making ephemeral works that continually modified. She repeatedly returned to the identical motifs, supplies and methods, to get as shut as doable to their essence. She explored her themes with fixed delicate variations from one work to the subsequent, experimenting with scales, kinds, materials, colors and floor results. The numerous faces that the artist moulded in wax, clay and plaster, lined with pigments, gold leaf or copper wire and tirelessly drew and painted on every kind of supporting supplies—from wood boards to sheets of paper—have a dynamic and enchantment just like these made by artists like Medardo Rosso and Amedeo Modigliani. As typically in Marisa Merz’s works the uncooked and the valuable seem shut collectively.
Merz moved expertly between artwork historical past and the on a regular basis. In her studio she used drawing, portray, sculpture and installations to show area and time into a giant collage. Together with the interrogation and overcoming of a conventional sense of fabric, the imaginary energy of so- known as ‘poor’ supplies occupied the foreground. These typically on a regular basis uncooked supplies developed a shocking poetry, and retain a powerful associative energy even at this time. Merz drew inspiration from the historical past of European portray, from Byzantine icons to the non secular work of Fra Angelico and Antonello da Messina, in addition to works such because the Flemish portray of the early Renaissance. Her therapy of various supplies is subtle and radically private, and forges an inseparable connection between excessive and well-liked tradition.
“I’m not concerned with energy or profession. Solely the world and me curiosity me.”
—Marisa Merz, 1985
Icons und new discoveries: Marisa Merz in Bern
The exhibition within the Kunstmuseum Bern consists of some 80 works in 5 cross-gallery chapters, together with drawings, work, sculptures and installations. There are additionally documentations of her earlier actions resembling the images of Claudio Abate, who was current at an motion by Merz on the seashore at Fregene close to Rome in 1970, by which the artist positioned small works fabricated from nylon threads within the sand, which had been subsequently carried away by the waves.
at Kunstmuseum Bern
till June 1, 2025
