Arte Povera giant Mario Merz dies in Italy
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Arte Povera giant Mario Merz dies in Italy
Italian artist Mario Merz, a leading exponent of the Arte Povera
movement which incorporates humble everyday materials into paintings,
has died in Turin aged 83, according to ANSA news agency.
Merz was awarded the Japan Arts Association's Praemium Imperiale, the
world's richest arts prize, earlier this year, receiving the
prestigious prize in Tokyo only last month.
Merz occupied a central place in Italy's artistic scene since his first =
exhibition in Turin in 1954.
In the 1960s, he embarked on an association with a number of other
Italian artists who began piercing their canvases with unorthodox
materials like bottles, umbrellas, plants, coal and other objects.
It became known as Arte Povera ("poor art"), to signify its
anti-elitist protest against consumerism and placed Italy in the
vanguard of the international art scene of the 1960s.
"Arte Povera is important because it is linked to life ... it is
necessary to use anything whatsoever from life in art, not to reject
things because one thinks that life and art are mutually exclusive,"
Merz said.
Merz's multi-media sculptures often included large figures like the
igloo and the spiral, and later using neon, he reflected Fibonacci
mathematical sequences in his art.
His most commonly-used materials were stone, earth, wood, metal and
glass, as well as newspapers and bits of fruit.
The Guggenheim Museum in New York dedicated its entire space to a
retrospective of his work in 1989.
FLASH ART NEWSLETTER
With Mario Merz one of the main protagonists in Italian postwar art has =
vanished.
Mario Merz, one of the main protagonists of Italian and international
postwar art, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 78. He was born
in Milan in 1925 and lived in Turin. He interrupted his studies in
medicine in order to dedicate himself completely to art. His first
ventures into painting were characterized by a strong
expressionist-informal component, which wasn’t foreign to his
friendships with Pinot Gallizio, Emilio Vedova, Asger Jorn, etc. In
those years he also met his future wife Marisa, herself destined to an =
important artistic career, the only woman in the Arte Povera entourage. =
Towards the mid ’70s he was one of the founders of the historical Arte =
Povera group named by Germano Celant. He began working with natural
materials (stone, wood, earth, fruit...) combined with industrial
materials (neon, glass, cement...) in organic installations that
compose archetypical figures: for instance, the igloo and the spiral.
In these same years he used the research on the Fibonacci sequence, a
series of numbers derived from the sum of the previous two numbers,
named after the mathematician who studied it. The Fibonacci sequence
together with the igloo and the spiral — trademarks of the Milanese
artist — arranged in huge spirals or straight lines, refer to the
continuous cycle and structure of biological life.
Already in 1967 he was included in the pages of Flash Art, in Germano
Celant’s famous manifesto on Arte Povera “Appunti per una =
guerriglia,”
which signalled the official birth of Arte Povera. In 1989,
international recognition arrived with retrospectives at the Guggenheim =
in New York and at the MOCA in Los Angeles. Among the major group shows =
we remember “When attitudes become form” (Bern, 1969) and Documenta =
5
(Kassel, 1972). Recently, his retrospectives were held in the Museu de =
Serralves, Porto in 1999 and in the Musée d’Art Modern et =
Contemporain,
Nice in 2000. Last October, Mario Merz was the recipient of the
important career prize, the Imperial Premium for the Arts in Tokyo.
…Those of you who were in Turin during the last days for the art fair =
will keep as a memory the long and suggestive luminous Fibonacci series =
still installed along the Mole Antonelliana.
Lucio Agra
At 13:17 10/11/03 -0600, you wrote:
from ABC News Australia:
Arte Povera giant Mario Merz dies in Italy
Italian artist Mario Merz, a leading exponent of the Arte Povera movement which incorporates humble everyday materials into paintings, has died in Turin aged 83, according to ANSA news agency.
Merz was awarded the Japan Arts Association's Praemium Imperiale, the world's richest arts prize, earlier this year, receiving the prestigious prize in Tokyo only last month.
Merz occupied a central place in Italy's artistic scene since his first exhibition in Turin in 1954.
In the 1960s, he embarked on an association with a number of other Italian artists who began piercing their canvases with unorthodox materials like bottles, umbrellas, plants, coal and other objects.
It became known as Arte Povera ("poor art"), to signify its anti-elitist protest against consumerism and placed Italy in the vanguard of the international art scene of the 1960s.
"Arte Povera is important because it is linked to life ... it is necessary to use anything whatsoever from life in art, not to reject things because one thinks that life and art are mutually exclusive," Merz said.
Merz's multi-media sculptures often included large figures like the igloo and the spiral, and later using neon, he reflected Fibonacci mathematical sequences in his art.
His most commonly-used materials were stone, earth, wood, metal and glass, as well as newspapers and bits of fruit.
The Guggenheim Museum in New York dedicated its entire space to a retrospective of his work in 1989.
FLASH ART NEWSLETTER
With Mario Merz one of the main protagonists in Italian postwar art has vanished.
Mario Merz, one of the main protagonists of Italian and international postwar art, passed away Sunday morning at the age of 78. He was born in Milan in 1925 and lived in Turin. He interrupted his studies in medicine in order to dedicate himself completely to art. His first ventures into painting were characterized by a strong expressionist-informal component, which wasn’t foreign to his friendships with Pinot Gallizio, Emilio Vedova, Asger Jorn, etc. In those years he also met his future wife Marisa, herself destined to an important artistic career, the only woman in the Arte Povera entourage. Towards the mid ’70s he was one of the founders of the historical Arte Povera group named by Germano Celant. He began working with natural materials (stone, wood, earth, fruit...) combined with industrial materials (neon, glass, cement...) in organic installations that compose archetypical figures: for instance, the igloo and the spiral.
In these same years he used the research on the Fibonacci sequence, a series of numbers derived from the sum of the previous two numbers, named after the mathematician who studied it. The Fibonacci sequence together with the igloo and the spiral — trademarks of the Milanese artist — arranged in huge spirals or straight lines, refer to the continuous cycle and structure of biological life.
Already in 1967 he was included in the pages of Flash Art, in Germano Celant’s famous manifesto on Arte Povera “Appunti per una guerriglia,” which signalled the official birth of Arte Povera. In 1989, international recognition arrived with retrospectives at the Guggenheim in New York and at the MOCA in Los Angeles. Among the major group shows we remember “When attitudes become form” (Bern, 1969) and Documenta 5 (Kassel, 1972). Recently, his retrospectives were held in the Museu de Serralves, Porto in 1999 and in the Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Nice in 2000. Last October, Mario Merz was the recipient of the important career prize, the Imperial Premium for the Arts in Tokyo.
…Those of you who were in Turin during the last days for the art fair will keep as a memory the long and suggestive luminous Fibonacci series still installed along the Mole Antonelliana.
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