The art book is published for the exhibitions held at the Kunstmuseum in Winthertur (September 6th / November 23rd 2003) and at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in New York (January 24th / February 21th 2004): it’s a black and white and color collection of drawings made by Marisa Merz between 2001 and 2004.

“Forty-three images on white paper, not contained within outlines but mere indications of figures: fine, dark visions which seemed to collect on the surface only to disperse again – barely any lines, just a suggestion. […] The drawings concentrate on the features of a face: eyes and a mouth, reference points which seem less to belong to a person than to occupy the space – not with any regularity, but sporadically like an assembly congregating, a throng of beings settling here and there.  […] Speed and energy shape these drawings, the gesture of the artist’s hand audaciously denies what has been before and forges ahead instead of sinking into the paper.” (Dieter Schwarz)

Marisa Merz was born in Turin and has participated in the creative activities that coalesced in the Arte povera group, showing at the Deposito d’Arte Presente in 1967 and in the group show Arte Povera + Azioni Povere, in Amalfi in 1968. In addition to having participated in some of the most important group shows in the last thirty years, Marisa Merz has also exhibited at many editions of the Venice Biennale, winning the Prize in 2001 edition. 

The catalogue was published on the occasion of the Non toccare la donna bianca. La liberazione delle diversità exhibition held at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin from 17 September 2004 to 8 January 2005. The exhibition at Fondazione Sandretto, curated by Francesco Bonami, is a reflection on the artistic role of women in a society shaped by male identity. The book, which constitutes the exhibition catalogue, aims to investigate this reality through the creative language of nineteen women artists whose works include installations, drawings, videos and photographs, mixing heterogeneous languages used to interpret the theme of women artists’ freedom in contemporary culture.

The book has been produced maintaining the creative layout specially conceived by the artists who have interpreted the pages dedicated to them in an autonomous and original way: a series of images follow one another without interruption, in a lively alternation that sees the works of well-known artists such as Shirin Neshat juxtaposed with those of emerging ones such as Maja Bajevic.

Accompanied by a text by the exhibition’s curator Francesco Bonami and by the entries for each work files and including a biographical and bibliographical appendix, the catalogue offers an original interpretation of the selected works of Micol Assaël, Maja Bajevic, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Marlene Dumas, Ellen Gallagher, Carmit Gil, Fernanda Gomes, Lyudmila Gorlova, Mona Hatoum, Michal Helfman, Emily Jacir, Koo Jeong-a, Daniela Kostova, Senga Nengudi, Shirin Neshat, Shirana Shahbazi, Valeska Soares, Nobuko Tsuchiya and Shen Yuan.

The book was published on the occasion of the Domenico Bianchi Mario Merz exhibition dedicated to the two artists as part of the Art&Maggio event, held at the Castello Svevo in Bari from 1 May to 30 June 2004.
The catalogue collects the photographic documentation of the exhibition and opens with the images of Mario Merz’s artistic project set up in the inner courtyard of the Angevin castle: it is a large igloo built in 1998 to be exhibited in the park of the Fundaçao Serralves in Porto and presented in the Bari exhibition as a tribute to the recently deceased artist. The iron structure of the igloo is surmounted by a deer that symbolically underlines the spiritual dimension of the work.
The second part of the catalogue is dedicated to the creations conceived by Domenico Bianchi and arranged in the castle’s Sala Angioina: eleven large paintings made using materials such as wood, wax, palladium and fibreglass.
The last part of the book uses images to illustrate some of Bianchi’s most significant experiences in exhibitions for indoor spaces and Merz’s works for outdoor spaces.

If Michelangelo blocks of marble already contained I Prigioni that the sculptor later digged out, the materials protagonists of Storie di pietra e d’altro (Tales of stone and more) had already inside them the artworks that the man will take out and the tale that will make of him an artist. The young readers of Tales of stones and more find out materials as the artists of our century have already done - Anselmo, Penone, Pistoletto, Merz, Kounellis - who bring to the extreme limit the sensitivity that makes them catch "the artistic "inside the substance and inside the shape, before the human agency. In Quarzo microcosmos, so close to the children's one, stones can think, but their thinking is not as fast as their becoming sand; growing trees destroy the skyscrapers' order; clothes thrown in the room becomes a rainbow; and all the tales connect one thing to the other as in a kind of an illustrated Mille e una notte of art materials.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino 1948, winner of the Andersen Baia delle Favole Prize in 1995 as best author, is primary school teacher and wrote nursery rhymes, novels, tales for children among which Seconda storia del Principe Faccia da Maiale, L'ultimo lupo mannaro in città, Comefuché, Il viaggio dell'Orca Zoppa, Sogno disegno matita di legno, Luì e l'arte di andare nel bosco  (first book of the series hopefulmonster La favola dell'arte), and theatre texts played in schools and theatres of Torino.

If Michelangelo blocks of marble already contained I Prigioni that the sculptor later digged out, the materials protagonists of Tales of stone and more had already inside them the artworks that the man will take out and the tale that will make of him an artist. The young readers of Tales of stones and more find out materials as the artists of our century have already done - Anselmo, Penone, Pistoletto, Merz, Kounellis - who bring to the extreme limit the sensitivity that makes them catch "the artistic "inside the substance and inside the shape, before the human agency. In Quarzo microcosmos, so close to the children's one, stones can think, but their thinking is not as fast as their becoming sand; growing trees destroy the skyscrapers' order; clothes thrown in the room becomes a rainbow; and all the tales connect one thing to the other as in a kind of an illustrated Mille e una notte of art materials. The book is the english edition of Storie di pietra e d'altro by Guido Quarzo, published in the same series in 1997.

Guido Quarzo, born in Torino 1948, winner of the Andersen Baia delle Favole Prize in 1995 as best author, is primary school teacher and wrote nursery rhymes, novels, tales for children among which Seconda storia del Principe Faccia da Maiale, L'ultimo lupo mannaro in città, Comefuché, Il viaggio dell'Orca Zoppa, Sogno disegno matita di legno, Luì and the art of going into the woods (first book of the series hopefulmonster La favola dell'arte), and theatre texts played in schools and theatres of Torino.

“One looked like a dinosaur. Another one looked like a anteater. Another one a big lizard or a crocodile. They are not just figures or signes amomg the stars. They are living creatures that move up in the sky – I said – the Universe is full of dinosaurs, kites, lizards and lions, men with arrows and rhinos”.

Have you ever looked at the sky discovering stars and constellations in courious shapes and wondering maybe someone else is doing the same on the other side?

From the synergy between Marosia Castaldi’s words and Mario Merz’s images, a tender fable telling about a world made of imagination that is inside everyone, told through a swift language that goes with the colours and shapes of Art.

La favola dell’arte, or a fabulous way of entering the world of art. The art of writing and the art of the figure in a close synergy at the service of fun and learning.

Mario Merz (Milan 1925-2003) was one of the leading exponents of Arte Povera. His works have been shown in permanent collections of the most important and prestigious museums all over the world: from Guggenheim in New York to the MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) in Los Angeles, from Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam to Nationalgalerie in Berlin, from Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He received the Japanese Imperial Praemium for sculpture on November 2003.

Marosia Castaldi (Naples 1951 - Milan 2019) has studied philosophy and art. She has published narrative works, Abbastanza prossimo (Tam Tam 1986, finalist at Mondello Prize 1986), Casa idiota (Tringale 1990), Piccoli paesaggi (Anterem 1993) and novels, La Montagna (Campanotto 1991), Ritratto di Dora (Loggia dè Lanzi 1994, finalist at Palazzo al Bosco Prize 1992), Fermata km 501 (Tranchida 1997), Per quante vite (Feltrinelli 1999, finalist at Premio Bergamo 2000 and at Premio Chianti 2000).