This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition DOPO by Christian Boltanski held at Fondazione Merz from 3rd November 2015 to 31th January 2016. “Christian Boltanski lays claim to his being an artist of the twentieth century, and indeed all his work takes us into the heart of the contemporary scene. But not the updated and temporary one but the real one made of choices and events that change the meaning of individual anonymous lives that become choral and paradigmatic. It is another way to tell the story that we are. Not the impressive and official one, never that of the winners but the story of all of us, with things desired and also suffered. With minimal language and one not prone to celebration he has succeeded in talking about everything without remaining anchored to anything”. (Claudia Gioia)

This book reproduces the photographic documentation of the exhibition and it is enriched by texts by Claudia Gioia (exhibition curator), Massimo Donà (philosopher), Beatrice Merz.

Christian Boltanski (1944-2021), French painter, sculptor, photographer and filmmaker, was born in Paris. He began to make his way in the art world with painting when he was only thirteen years old, towards the end of the 1950s. In the 1960s, he began to develop a 'personal ethnology' marked by the influence of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Harald Szeemann, among others. At the same time, drawing on museology, Boltanski exhibited inventories of objects of anonymous owners (photos, clothing, bells, flowers...) creating an extraordinary hybrid between absence and presence, autobiography and collective imagination.

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the finalists’ exhibition of the First Edition of the Mario Merz Prize, held at the Fondazione Merz from January 29 to April 12 2015.
“The International Mario Merz Award was created with the desire to start a new project which through the skills of an extensive international network of experts, could identify new emerging talent in art and, in parallel, enable young composers to present themselves with an innovative project of contemporary music.
With this publication we aim to document the final phase of the first edition of the prize, with some pictures of the works exhibited at the Fondazione Merz in Turin. [...] In the work of the contributors the prize seeks characteristics of internationality, generosity of thought, interest in social affairs and innovation. These qualities have been found in the works of Lida Abdul, Glenn Ligon, Naeem Mohaiemen, Anri Sala, Wael Shawky and in the compositions of Paolo Boggio, Arturo Corrales, Vassos Nicolaou, Cyrill Schürch and Vito Žuraj.” (Beatrice Merz, Willy Merz)

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition Todestriebe by MASBEDO (Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni) held at Fondazione Merz from 3rd October 2014 to 11th January 2015. “The mantis waiting in the shadows is a still taken from the latest video by the Masbedo, entitled Todestriebe, which means death wish, a concept identified by Freud as an unavoidable aspect of the human unconscious, which aspires to the enjoyment rather than to one’s well-being. […] Todestriebe is also the title of the exhibition that Iacopo Bedogni and Nicolò Massazza are presenting at the Fondazione Merz, because it is an instinct that permeates every work in their exhibition project. Conflict, dramatic relationships, loneliness all appearing together in an atmosphere of aggression and passiveness. It seems that life itself is cannibal by definition, like a kind of mantis.

The catalogue was published on the occasion of the Voglio fare subito una mostra exhibition featuring Elisabetta Benassi at the Fondazione Merz running from 15 May 2012 to 8 September 2013.
“The exhibition is divided into different moments, starting with the large installation of the fishing boat ’beached’ in the rooms of the Fondazione with a car hanging from its stern (Mareo Merz, 2013). Months earlier, a newspaper report contained the image of a boat whose swollen nets contained another boat. The artist mentally appropriated this surreal vision, processed it and returned it, rich in new content. Elisabetta Benassi’s research always leads to the discovery of what time has allowed to sediment in things: not only the visible traces of the processes of transformation of matter, but the soul of things given to them by those who have owned them or only lived in them for brief periods, imbuing them with moods, laughter, sleep and exhausting vigils. ”. (Maria Centonze)

The book reproduces the photographic documentation of the exhibition and is enriched with texts by Maria Centonze, Beatrice Merz, Luca Lo Pinto and Olaf Nicolai.

The catalogue is published on the occasion of Abbiamo amato tanto la rivoluzione (‘We loved it so much the revolution’) exhibition by Alfredo Jaar held at Fondazione Merz from 5^th November 2013 to 2^nd February 2014. “Alfredo Jaar has chosen the reflection (in both senses of the word) of history from the 1960s and ‘70s. He travels some way with Mario Merz, builds a picture gallery and invites the works of some artists with whom he feels some kinship in this adventure, and illuminates memory so that it A deliberate act of will by the artist, with an invitation to modify our perception of things. The luminosity of the words written in neon indicates the fragile border between truth, the non-linear progress of thought and the need to prepare oneself to cross over”. (Claudia Gioia)

This catalogue photographically documents the exhibition and thus offers vivid insight into artist’s work, whose interior pathway is told in words by the exhibition’s curator Claudia Gioia, accompanying texts by Beatrice Merz, a poem by Nanni Balestrini and an interview by Luigi Fassi.

This DVD reintroduces the essential 2000 VHS video documentary Arte Povera by Sergio Ariotti and Beatrice Merz, a complete, chronological overview of the radical – and defiantly unglamorous–Italian “poor art” movement that arose in the late 1960s to contest the separation of art and everyday life. It presents ample archival material from all the significant group exhibitions – from the three-day event Arte Povera + Azioni Povere at Amalfi of 1968 to the Venice Biennale of 1997 – along with footage of recent solo exhibitions and interview clips with founding member and art historian Germano Celant, and a range of other artists, critics and gallery directors. Arte Povera presents the movement in all its complexity, and includes such participants as Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Gilberto Zorio.