Marisa Merz (1926–2019) was one of the leading figures in the post-war Italian art scene. In 2013, she was awarded the Golden Lion for her life’s work at the 55th Venice Biennale. Today she is considered the only woman among the main representatives of Arte Povera. Her subtle, powerful works contain numerous references to European art history, as well as many everyday materials and techniques.
The only woman in the circle of Arte Povera
From aluminium to clay, from copper to nylon, from wax to fabric – Marisa Merz’s works are characterized by their ‘poor’ materials. They reflect her close relationship with the group of the radical Arte Povera art movement around the Italian artists Alighiero Boetti, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Pino Pascali, Giulio Paolini, Emilio Prini and her husband Mario Merz, which developed in a turbulent post-industrial Italy in the late 1960s. Marisa Merz shared with her colleagues her interest in raw materials, in the relationship of sculpture—in her case the body, specifically the body read as female—with space, as well as the relationship between art and life. This led her to develop an autonomous artistic position: her work stands out for its silence, poetry and search for the fragility of art and life. In this way a resolutely open body of work was created over fifty years.
“The artist already has an established role, like that of a wife or a son. But I do not identify with these roles, separating roles, lists…”
—Marisa Merz, 1985
Faces of gold and earth
Marisa Merz worked in series, making ephemeral works that constantly changed. She repeatedly returned to the same motifs, materials and techniques, to get as close as possible to their essence. She explored her themes with constant delicate variations from one work to the next, experimenting with scales, forms, material, colours and surface effects. The many faces that the artist moulded in wax, clay and plaster, covered with pigments, gold leaf or copper wire and tirelessly drew and painted on all kinds of supporting materials—from wooden boards to sheets of paper—have a dynamic and appeal similar to those made by artists like Medardo Rosso and Amedeo Modigliani. As often in Marisa Merz’s works the raw and the precious appear close together.
Merz moved expertly between art history and the everyday. In her studio she used drawing, painting, sculpture and installations to turn space and time into a big collage. Along with the interrogation and overcoming of a traditional sense of material, the imaginary power of so- called ‘poor’ materials occupied the foreground. These often everyday raw materials developed a surprising poetry, and retain a strong associative power even today. Merz drew inspiration from the history of European painting, from Byzantine icons to the religious paintings of Fra Angelico and Antonello da Messina, as well as works such as the Flemish painting of the early Renaissance. Her treatment of different materials is sophisticated and radically personal, and forges an inseparable connection between high and popular culture.
“I am not interested in power or career. Only the world and me interest me.”
—Marisa Merz, 1985
Icons und new discoveries: Marisa Merz in Bern
The exhibition in the Kunstmuseum Bern includes some 80 works in five cross-gallery chapters, including drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations. There are also documentations of her earlier actions such as the photographs of Claudio Abate, who was present at an action by Merz on the beach at Fregene near Rome in 1970, in which the artist placed small works made of nylon threads in the sand, which were subsequently carried away by the waves.
at Kunstmuseum Bern
until June 1, 2025