The second instalment of the Fondazione Merz’s i quaderni series is dedicated to the major Mario Merz exhibition held last year, which presented the public with the largest selection of drawings by the great master, some of which had never been on public display before.

The series consists of slim volumes that keep the public up to date on all the activities promoted by the Turin institute. Each issue takes its cue from a particularly important event – which the Fondazione documents through images in greater numbers and detail than does a catalogue – to reconstruct the entire season of which it was part, testifying to the subtle narrative followed by the evolution of art. These publications reflect an uninterrupted dialogue with Mario Merz, with his works preserved and presented by the foundation and with his writings, of which each issue of i quaderni presents a previously unpublished selection. Each issue of i quaderni is rounded off by a section of critical texts, with lists of the works on display, and a chronology that gives a synopsis of the complex itinerary – full of performances, readings, educational activities and conferences – planned by the scientific committee which, along with the president, Beatrice Merz, includes Richard Flood (The New Museum, New York), Dieter Schwarz (Kunstmuseum, Winthertur) and Vicente Todolí (Tate Modern, London).

The book is published on the occasione of the exhibition already 39 years on this planet held at Centro Arti Visive Pescheria in Pesaro from 12 April to 25 May 2008.

From its foundation the Centro Arti Visive Pescheria has demonstrated a distinct vocation for contemporary sculpture represented by great international figures such as Giuseppe Penone, Tony Cragg and Jan Vercruysse coupled with younger artists such as Francesco Gennari. Today the Pescheria presents Gianni Caravaggio’s first retrospective exhibition in the former Suffragio church, including a selection of work inspired by cosmogonic and astrophyisic visions. Caravaggio provides an idea of sculpture from a conceptual matrix with a playful character that finds familiarity within the ontological and metaphysical line of Italian art rooted in Lucio Fontana’s Spatialism and the work of Piero Manzoni and Luciano Fabro.

Caravaggio projects this vision into the current artistic panorama with a unique understanding, a vision that is fittingly presented in a space dedicated to the research of contemporary Italian artists.

The book contains contributions by the artist himself, Giorgio Verzotti and Martin Bojowald. It also includes an interview edited by Ludovico Pratesi.

The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Lo spazio dell’uomo  (The space of man ) held at the Fondazione Merz (Turin) from 24 January to 11 May 2008. The exhibition is realised in agreement and with the support of the Regione Piemonte, with the contribution of the DIRAC (Ministero de Relaciones Exteriores), the patronage of the IILA (Istituto Italo-Latino Americano) and in collaboration with the Fundación Allende.

As the point of departure, the Fondazione Merz has chosen to present, for the first time in Europe, the Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (Salvador Allende Museum of Solidarity) with a selection of 29 works from their collection of international art, and then to offer a look at current artistic production, represented here by the works of six young Chilean artists.

The book is published on the occasion of two exhibitions held at the Galleria Marabini in Bologna and at Centro Arti Visive Pescheria in Pesaro (26 October 2007-13 January 2008).

Candida Höfer is a German photographer, a former student of Bernd and Hilla Becher and specializing in large-format photographs of empty interiors and social spaces that capture the “psychology of social architecture”. In spite of the diversity of achitectural ideology and stylistic conventions, Hofer captures a singularity of the architects’ intent to represent a grand superstructure.

Candida Höfer’s photographs of libraries are sober and restrained – the atmosphere is disturbed by neither visitors nor users, especially as she forgoes any staging of the locations.

Candida Höfer was born in Eberswalde in 1944. She was a student at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art from 1973 to 1982, and studied film under Ole John before going on to study photography under the tutelage of Bernd Becher. Since 1975 she has taken part in numerous group exhibitions and held countless solo shows, and is now considered one of the greats of the current international photographic and art community.

The catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition INBETWEENESS held at San Michele former prison at Ripa (Rome) from 22 May to 15 June 2007. This exhibition wants to give you an idea of the situation experienced by recent generations of artists in the Balkan regions; we have called it Inbetweeness. This word represents a condition of perennial transit, an undefined identity in continuous movement from one place to another, in different time frames and different spaces, often in contradiction to each other. This ongoing condition of transience is something that the artists have experienced in person. It has prompted them to abandon their millenary traditions in order to embrace more modern forms of expression, such as the installation, photography, video, or the Net, all of which are instruments that can express pressing needs which could no longer be conveyed by the static nature of a painting or sculpture. The Balkans are a border region that has represented the meeting of East and West for centuries, all too often in the form of bloody conflicts. Today, in the era of globalisation, the Balkans actually stand for change and the definition of an ideal territory in which these two worlds can live in peace. For this reason the San Michele a Ripa former prison complex is the ideal venue for expressing this change. And so the works of the twenty-four exhibiting artists, symbolically placed inside the cells, form a melting pot of ideas, concepts, messages, and declarations that are able to annul the physical and symbolic confines of their space in order to create a new territory, one in which art can be freely expressed.

Essays are edited by Dobrila Denegri and Ludovico Pratesi.

Artists: Maja Bajeviç, Maja Beganoviç, Pavel Braila, Mircea Cantor e Gabriela Vanga, Nemanja Cvijanoviç, Nezaket Ekici, Nicu Ilfoveanu, Pravdoljub Ivanov, Šejla Kameriç, Daniela Kostova, David Maljkoviç, Ebru Özseçen, Adrian Paci, Tobijas Putrih, Anri Sala, son:DA, Miça Stajãiç, Erzen Shkololli, Jelena Tomaševiç, Slavica Toševska, Nikola Uzunovski, Vesna Vesiç, Natalija Vujoševiç

The series of catalogues published by hopefulmonster for GAM, continues with a monograph dedicated to the Italian artist Elisa Sighicelli for the exhibition held at GAM from March 15 to June 10 2007.
The catalogue, that tells deeply about the artistic personality of the artist through her works, opens with the photographic documentation of the exhibition to tell then through the images the art of Sighicelli from 1990’s up to today, showing light boxes and video projections.
Following a period of substantial observation of many of the variegated and composite effects that light can generate, the artist has recently chosen to investigate, in depth, the perceptive processes triggered by visual and luminous devices, both through moving images and photographic research. The scenarios are normally domestic situations, with an ordinary light. They tell of human presence through interior views, daily and earthy spaces. The attention placed on the possibilities, not only representative but rather experiential, offered by light and darkness, has led Sighicelli to direct her practice to scenarios that are increasingly aimed towards a more active role of the onlooker.