Within the Echos project, a pas de deux between visual art and theatre, the two artists, Alfredo Jaar and Romeo Castellucci, one for each of the two languages, find themselves answering the same questions, as if in front of an imaginary mirror. The structure of the double, of the mirror in fact, reflects and ideally crosses the different looks, approaches and results that find - not surprisingly - surprising commonalities. Alfredo Jaar and Romeo Castellucci, leading figures in contemporary creation, are the protagonists of the first volume.
(On the occasion of the Festival delle Colline Torinesi in world premiere currently available on the hopefulmonster website and in the bookshop of the Fondazione Merz in Turin.)

Romeo Castellucci, director, creator of sets, lighting and costumes, is among the most significant authors of contemporary theatre. A graduate in painting and set design from the Accademia di Belle Arti in Bologna, in 1981 he co-founded the Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. In 2005 he was director of the theatre section of the Venice Biennale and in 2008 he was associate artist of the 62nd edition of the Festival d'Avignon. Winner of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2013, the following year he was awarded an honorary degree in music and theatre by the University of Bologna. Among his most recent creations: the plays The Third Reich (2020), Bros (2021), the direction of the operas Pavane für Prometheus IX (2021) and Bluebeard's Castle (2022), the public action Milan (2021) and the installation Tomorrow (2022).

Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean artist, architect and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. He studied architecture during the dictatorial regime in Chile and moved to New York in 1982. His work focuses on socio-political issues, the semiotics of images, themes of utopia and failure. He has participated in the Venice Art Biennale (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), the São Paulo Biennale (1987, 1989, 2010, 2021) and Documenta (1987, 2002). He received the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018 and the Hasselblad Award in 2020. His works have been exhibited worldwide.

The first volume of the catalogue raisonné of the artist's work is dedicated to igloos. Based on the exhaustive research conducted by art historian Maddalena Disch, it is an editorial project of the Fondazione Merz, with the support of the Scientific and Editorial Committee composed of Mariano Boggia, Luisa Borio, Richard Flood, Beatrice Merz, Frances Morris and Vicente Todolì. The volume is introduced by a text by Beatrice Merz and an essay by Maddalena Disch. Each work is presented with an analytical historical and biographical profile supported by accurate bibliographical references and an exhaustive photographic repertoire.

The volume includes texts by the artist and interviews with Jean-Christophe Ammann, Mirella Bandini, Sergio Barana, Matteo Benvenuti, Achille Bonito Oliva, Germano Celant, Bruno Corà, Danilo Eccher, Corinna Ferrari, Piero Gilardi, Marlis Grüterich, Claudio Guarda, Michael Haerdter, Richard Koshalek, Corrado Levi, Salvatore Licitra, Beatrice Merz, Linda Morris, Fumio Nanjo, Suzanne Pagé, Gabriele Perretta, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Mila Pistoi, Barbara Reise, Giuseppe Risso, Harald Szeemann, Laura Tansini, Caroline Tisdall, Tommaso Trini, Paolo Vagheggi, Gemma Vincenzini and Francesco Vincitorio; as well as a biographical note and bibliography edited by the Merz Archive.

The book, consisting of 560 pages and 350 images, is published in two editions, one in Italian and one in English.

The project is realised thanks to the support of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture within the framework of the Italian Council programme (2023).

In Turin, for the first time, Khalil Rabah's Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind takes the form of an archaeological site, in which the visitor is invited to immerse himself in a historical narrative rendered through testimonies and clues. In the spaces of the Fondazione Merz, the artist challenges the role of the museum as a mere container and focuses on art as a tool for the interpretation and correction of history. Khalil Rabah's artistic practice ranges between painting, sculpture and installation to construct a lucid and careful analysis of history and its interpretations, questioning their narrative modes and the perception they generate. Fundamental themes such as change, memory and identity intersect in his work, creating new ways of representing communities and relationships. ways of representing communities and the relationships that make them up.

The catalogue accompanies the project conceived by Khalil Rabah for the Fondazione Merz and was created as an extension of the Palestinian Museum of Natural History and Humankind (PMNHH). Developed as a nomadic museum institution that the artist inaugurated in 2003, Rabah's museum, which includes departments such as geology, botany and palaeontology, has seen several iterations around the world and is identified as a project in constant evolution.

Khalil Rabah is a Palestinian conceptual artist born in Jerusalem in 1961. He studied Architecture and Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Arlington and has resided in the United States for over a decade. His most recent solo exhibitions include Casa Árabe, Madrid (2016); Kunsthaus Hamburg (2015); e-flux, New York (2013); and Beirut Art Center (2012). As well as major group exhibitions, including Manifesta 12 Palermo (2018); Sharjah Biennial (2017); Marrakech Biennial (2016); Kochi-Muziris Biennial (2014); Thessaloniki Biennial (2013); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2012); Mathaf, Doha (2010); and Venice Biennale (2009). Rabah is the initiator and artistic director of the Riwaq Biennale and a co-founder of the Al Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art, Jerusalem. From 2011 to 2015 he served on the curricular committee of Ashkal Alwan's Home Workspace programme in Beirut, Lebanon.

Rome, end of the 1950s, when the Italian art scene is in great turmoil. One of the protagonists of the debate on the renewal of the arts is the painter Francesco Lo Savio, one of the most problematic personalities of the Italian post-informal avant-garde.
Lo Savio is a participant in the (not only Italian but international) revolution of a generation of young artists who want to break away from the previous Informal culture and move towards a new mechanism of artwork construction, centred on the qualities inherent to painting itself.
There was a lack of a more detailed and organic view of his work in the critical literature. Angelo Di Modica's complex work constitutes a significant contribution to fully reconstructing the difficult and significant artistic and human history of Francesco Lo Savio. It investigates the artist's entire career in all its fundamental passages and returns an image of him that is as defined as possible. It measures the reasons and circumstances of his art, shedding new light on moments of his research that have not yet been sufficiently investigated and at the same time rediscovering themes and personalities that have made up the story of the last century.

Angelo Di Modica holds a PhD in Methods and Methodologies of Archaeological and Art-Historical Research (2022) and he is a research fellow at the Department of Cultural Heritage Sciences, University of Salerno. An art historian, he has published essays and contributions on Italian artistic experiences of the 20th century with a focus on the Roman scene between the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The book tells the story of artist Concetta Modica's project, winner of the PAC - Piano per l'Arte Contemporanea 2021 - Linea committenza call for bids, promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture and commissioned by the Civic Museum of Castelbuono (Palermo). The work she realised is linked to the historical events of the relic of St. Anne, the patron saint of Castelbuono, preserved in the chapel dedicated to her in the Ventimiglia Castle, home of the Museum. It is a large blue felt cloth printed in ink using a special intaglio technique, representing the image of the sky above Castelbuono on the night of 4 May 1454, the date on which the relic was transferred from the town of Geraci to Castelbuono. The image of the starry sky was obtained with the collaboration of the GAL Hassin Foundation - International Centre for Astronomical Sciences of Isnello. The project also makes use of the contribution of the embroiderers of Castelbuono and Isnello, renews the value of collaboration between institutions and communities and promotes a reinterpretation of the cultural heritage by encouraging cooperation between artists, artisans and the territory. The book contains texts by the president of the museum's board of directors, Mariaenza Puccia; museum director, Laura Barreca; curator of the public programme, Maria Rosa Sossai; anthropologist Angelo Cucco; astrophysicist Sabrina Masiero, head of didactics - GAL Hassin Foundation; Michela Eremita, co-founder of the Children's Art Museum of Santa Maria della Scala in Siena; and a conversation between the artist and Valentina Bruschi, curator of the project.

Concetta Modica was born in Modica and lives and works in Milan. Her works reflect on the present and its paradoxes, in particular on the concept of the 'contemporary epic'.

The volume constitutes the catalogue of Francesco Bartoli's project for mudaC | Museo delle arti Carrara and brings together images, drawings, photos, notes, and sketches documenting the genesis of the film of the same name and its final installation. The volume is conceived to disseminate the project on display and as a vehicle to promote tourism and the local cultural heritage. The project "Sculpting the Wind" by Francesco Bartoli, winner of the PAC - Plan for Contemporary Art 2021 of the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, curated by Laura Barreca, included the production of a film and it is one of the 39 projects selected from the 98 proposals that reached the 2021 edition of the call for proposals, for the acquisition, production, and valorization of works of contemporary art and creativity destined for the Italian public heritage. The title of the work is freely inspired by Andrej Tarkovskij's famous book "Sculpting Time", and in line with the museum's cultural orientation, it takes the form of a poetic narration and a dialogue with the territory of the Apuan Alps, linking together past and present, sculpture and landscape, art and technological innovation. The project was also realised with the collaboration of the Omero Museum for the Blind in Ancona and in partnership with the Academy of Fine Arts in Carrara. "The production of a work as complex as Bartoli's," commented the museum's director Laura Barreca, "is an extraordinary opportunity to reinterpret the Carrara area through creativity and poetic intuition, the outcome of which will be a film that will become part of the mudaC's permanent collection, thanks to the support that the DGCC has allocated to support Italian museums through the PAC Piano per l'Arte Contemporanea 2021.