The catalogue is published on the occasion of the solo exhibition held at the Institut Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt (Germany) from July 23rd to September 4th 2005.

This monograph, which documents several works, including paintings, sculpture, installations and drawings, is the most updated and complete examination of the artist. It is a rich iconographic recognition of the artist’s activity and an updated monograph that contains four selected essays. The works reproduced here represent Zorio entire artistic carreer. This catalogue raisonné presents the complete oeuvre of this important artist: his works from the 60s, Sedia (Chair), Tenda (Tent) and Senza titolo (Untitled), up to the latest series of Stella (Star) and Canoa (Canoe). This catalogue provides new insight into the many aspects of this extraordinary artist.

Gilberto Zorio’s artistic activity began through his involvment in the Arte Povera movement which developed in Italy at the end of the Sixties, as part of a more general tendency toward anti-form, anti-geometry. The interest in space and form was replaced by a focus on human activity and desire for organic harmony between art, culture and nature. Zorio uses primary material (metals, glass, rubber, wood, animal hide, alcohol, acids and minerals, water, fire and light), he concentrates on energy processes and is concerned with language as a medium and processes of linguistic communication.

The book includes a chronology with numerous photos and documents and an updated biobibliography.

This book is published on the occasion of the solo exhibition held at Institut Malthildenhöhe in Darmstadt from July 23rd to September 4th 2005. It collects 70 drawings by the artist and his text concerning some reflections over the contemporary painting role.

“These notes are for those who think my paintings are a more or less elegant exercise in decorative aestheticism. I would like to tell them that I believe and trust in the lyrical value of color and signs, but I do not think of painting, and art in general, as an escape from reality, a free zone. Just the opposite: I believe art continues to be a tool of awareness and therefore of immersion in reality.” (Giorgio Griffa)

Giorgio Griffa was born in Turin in 1936. Since 1968 he has held about one hundred solo shows in public and private spaces, including the 39th Venice Biennial in 1980, and the GAM in Turin in 2001-02. He has published the following texts: Non c’è rosa senza spine (Ed. Martano, Turin 1975); Cani sciolti antichisti (Martano and Samanedizioni, Genoa 1980); Drugstore Parnassus (Martano and Ottenhausen Verlag, Aachen 1981); In nascita di Cibera (Studio Noacco, Chieri 1989); 434-442-443-... (Ed. Franco Masoero, Turin 1992); Il principio di indeterminazione (Ed. Maestri Incisori, Milan 1994); Di segno in segno (with Martina Corgnati - Ed. Stefano Fumagalli, Bergamo 1995); Come un dialogo (Lorenzelli Arte, Milan 1997); Approdo a Gilania (Galleria Giancarlo Salzano, Turin 1998); Intelligenza della materia (Galleria Giancarlo Salzano, Turin 2000); 60 schizzi da opere 1968/2000 e un testo (Ed. Franco Masoero, Turin 2000); Nelle orme dei Cantos (Libri Scheiwiller, Milan 2001).

This book collects 19 drawings in a double version, with lightness and darkness view.

Gilberto Zorio exhibited in a number of the defining group shows of Arte Povera in 1967.He has exhibited widely in Europe and the United States. Retrospective exhibitions of Zorio’s work have been presented at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1979; the Kunstverein in Stuttgart in 1985; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris 1986; the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno in Valencia 1991; Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato 1992; Documenta inKassel 1992; Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea in Trento 1996; Dia Center for the Arts 2001 and Sonnabend Gallery in New York 2004.

This book is a new, revised and corrected edition of the artist’s writings first published in 1985. In line with the work system adopted by Mario Merz, the transcription of the texts does not maintain a chronological order, but identifies three moments of typological distinction in which different referential identities emerge in the development of the writing.

“Voglio fare subito un libro” (I want to make a book right now) is a collection of published and unpublished texts written by Mario Merz up to 1985, in which the dialogue between the ’forces’ of art and those of literature erupts at times luxuriantly and brilliantly and at times harshly and critically; it is concentrated or dispersed in various topics that flow through the pages like a river in flood. The poetic freedoms that Mario Merz appropriates in the act of writing are interwoven with suggestions and references to his art. An art managed on the basis of inventions: of architectural structures (the progression of tables, spirals or the better-known igloos...), of pictorial constructions (which have developed since the birth of Merz the artist), on the natural cyclical and numerical development of the elements (the application of Fibonacci’s numerical progression), on the use of materials rejected by society (broken glass, old newspapers...), on strategic statements (“Se il nemico si concentra perde terreno, se si disperde perde forza”, “Objet cache-toi”, “Città irreale…”) which are included in his works as axioms and emerge as traces in the reading of this book.” Harald Szeemann

“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 among 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 born in Naples, lives in Milan. She has studied philosophy and art. It’s ages since she dedicates herself completely to writing. She has published narrative texts, 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).

An illustrated overview of the architectural development of the Fondazione Merz, this is the book of the building. With beautiful photography it describes the finished building, the ideas behind it and the way in which it was designed and built. This visual narrative includes views of the construction and the Fondazione completed and in use.

The Fondazione’s site, a former heating plant for the Lancia factory, is a 1930s industrial building owned by the City of Turin and given in concession to the Fondazione Merz. It is located in Borgo San Paolo, an area now undergoing the urban and cultural revitalisation and refurbishment affecting much of Turin in recent years.

The refurbishment and restoration, supported by both private and public funds (City of Turin and the Regione Piemonte), has affected the whole building, defining the interior spaces and taking into account the cultural purposes the Fondazione intends pursuing. The building has an overall area of 3,200 m2, of which 1,400 for an exhibition area over three floors and including an external area.