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.

The book is published on the occasion of the exhibition Drawing Marble organized by Comune di Carrara and held at the Academy of Fine Arts from October 23rd 2004 to February 26th 2005.

The purpose was to bring together forty artists – sculptors, architects, designers, photographers and painters – to test the possibility to make this traditionally “cold” material a great author of modernity. The book collects works of art characterized by linguistic and stylistic elements which can be translated on marble.

The artists in the book are: Stephen Antonakos, Rinaldo Bigi, Enrica Borghi, Andrea Branzi, Gao Brothers, Simon Callery, Bruno Ceccobelli, Mario Ceroli, Joan Fontcuberta, Omar Galliani, Marco Gastini, Susy Gomez, Franco Guerzoni, Joseph Kosuth, Nicolas Leiva, Luigi Mainolfi, Javier Marín, Eliseo Mattiacci, Nino Migliori, Aldo Mondino, Gian Marco Montesano, Giordano Montorsi, Max Neuhaus, Nunzio, Perino & Vele, Vettor Pisani, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Carol Rama, Nicola Salvatore, Denis Santachiara, Alberto Terrile, Ivan Theimer, Enzo Tinarelli, Grazia Toderi, Vito Tongiani, David Tremlett, Antonio Trotta, Luisa Valentini, Fabio Viale, Bernd Zimmer, Gilberto Zorio.

The volume was published on the occasion of the Filippo Scroppo. Un artista tra pittura e critica exhibition organized by the Accademia Albertina, with the support of the City of Turin and the Piedmont Region, and hosted at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino from 1 December 2004 to 30 January 2005.

The goal of this volume is to recall some of the most significant moments in Filippo Scroppo’s artistic career, both through images of his works and through the testimony of his autograph writings and critical essays that deepen not only our knowledge of the artist but also his activity as a critic and curator.

“In the paintings produced between 1946 and 1948, the juxtaposition with Cézanne and Matisse, already recognizable in the canvases of the late 1930s, gives way to a more intense confrontation with the Cubist tradition. [...] Without crossing the analytical and self-reflective frontiers of the New Painting of the 1970s, he was a secret interpreter of the manner, and in the title of a painting of 1978 – Infiorescenza mentale – he perhaps wished to propose a poetic but also subtly ironic definition of the ruins and challenges into which artistic research was venturing”. (Maria Teresa Roberto) 

The catalogue reproduces about eighty works on display in the Turin exhibition and includes critical texts by Pino Mantovani, Maria Teresa Roberto and an extensive anthology edited by Ivana Multaro.

The series of catalogues published by hopefulmonster for GAM, Galleria Civica di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Torino, reserved for artists of the new generation, continues with a monograph dedicated to Vedovamazzei for the exhibition held at GAM from October 6 2004 to January 6 2005.
Founded in 1990 Vedovamazzei is the working name of Italian artists Stella Scala and Simeone Crispino. The book includes also two essays, one by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio and the other by Charlotte Laubard.
“Most of their works evince a familiarity with reality and at first exude a certain seductiveness, mixing humor with a sense for melodrama, they seem to wish to escape from interpretation at whatever the cost. Luminous and rash, heroic and impudent, the oeuvre of Vedovamazzei confronts the violence of the visible with eyes wide open. Their gaze fears neither sun nor death.” (Charlotte Laubard)

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.