Motivi 5

Mario Merz (Milan, Italy, 1925 – 2003), one of the leading exponents of Arte Povera, fits into the wake of his contemporary Italian artists, active between the 1970s and 1980s, who contributed to the spread of new trends and experimentation in art, starting with the classic work painted on canvas and then arriving at installations in the 1960s, seemingly simple but bearing certain messages and philosophical lucubrations. In Merz’s case, the elements to which the artist entrusts his artistic message are neon tubes, thus reusing a material born for a different use to express vital energy; igloo-shaped installations, which refer to ancient archetypes and which he uses as a way of investigating the relationship between the work of art and the space around it; and finally the Fibonacci number series, which is progressive suggests reasoning about the growth of the individual. Mer’s work, around the 1990s, after taking over museums and galleries thus further surpassing the concept of the exhibition hall in which to place the work (for example, he placed the Fibonacci series on a balustrade of the Guggenheim in New York), also lands in urban contexts such as the Antonellian Mole and the subway stations of some Italian and European cities, to share his art as much as possible with the public. His thoughts on art can also be found in a collection of his writings, Voglio fare subito un libro, published in 1985.