Meeting Merz: the Met Breuer exhibits the sole female artist of the Arte Povera movement
Meet Marisa Merz, sole female artist of the Arte Povera movement. Aged 90, Merz is receiving recognition of her contributions to radical art in the form of a first US retrospective at the Met Breuer in New York.
Arte Povera began in the north of Italy in the 1960s, a reaction to the rapid industrialisation in the region and the rise of a new commercial middle-class. Favouring 'poor', everyday and non-traditional materials, 'Marisa was an active part of this dynamic and contributed by proving to herself and others that it was possible to disengage from the fixed canons without giving up her identity, and to achieve maximum freedom of expression,' Beatrice Merz, her daughter, and founder/president of Turin's Fondazione Merz, explains.
Merz continues to work every day in Turin, where 'her studio is also her home, or any place in which she finds herself', says Beatrice. This spontaneous attitude to art-making emerges in her imaginative use of materials: shoes knitted with copper wire, her mammoth, iconic aluminium Living Sculpture (1966), and more recent and ethereal works, layering wax, pastel and spray paint – all going on show in New York.
Curated by Connie Butler (of the Hammer Museum) and the Met’s Ian Alteveer, 'Marisa Merz: The Sky Is a Great Space' highlights the freedom of Merz’s imagination – a freedom she perhaps didn’t have in her daily life, dedicated to being a mother and wife. 'To detail Merz's full contribution to Arte Povera is complicated. She was certainly outnumbered as well as often overshadowed and undervalued as a contributor by her male contemporaries, not least of them her late husband Mario, whose career she supported and aided,' Alteveer says. 'Her own work, especially the early sculptures made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were made in time carved out from her own duties at home,' he reveals.
The constraints of being a woman in her times hardly held Merz back – if anything, they made her more determined and free in her artistic expression. Arguably, Alteveer suggests, 'her work, it could be said, might be the best of the bunch because of it'.
INFORMATION
’Marisa Merz: The Sky is a Great Space’ is on view until 7 May. For more information, visit the Met Breuer website
ADDRESS
Met Breuer
945 Madison Avenue
New York NY 10021
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Charlotte Jansen is a journalist and the author of two books on photography, Girl on Girl (2017) and Photography Now (2021). She is commissioning editor at Elephant magazine and has written on contemporary art and culture for The Guardian, the Financial Times, ELLE, the British Journal of Photography, Frieze and Artsy. Jansen is also presenter of Dior Talks podcast series, The Female Gaze.
-
How to wear Byredo’s green liquid lipstick, according to the Wallpaper* beauty editor
Byredo’s green liquid lipstick, part of the new Mineralscapes collection, is easier to wear than it sounds says Wallpaper’s beauty editor Hannah Tindle
By Hannah Tindle Published
-
Stephanie D’heygere swaps fashion for design with surreal, pop architecture-inspired Antwerp office
Stephanie D’heygere of Paris accessories label D’heygere brings her playful eye to ‘Officeland’, a co-working space in Antwerp filled with supersized objects in ode to Claes Oldenburg and American pop architecture
By Belle Hutton Published
-
Shadowbox is a Montana retreat that epitomises rest, reflection and recovery
Shadowbox is a Montana retreat designed by Arizona based by The Ranch Mine as a contextual escape for unique experiences
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
The New York art exhibitions to see now
From MoMA to the smaller spaces, here are the best New York art exhibitions to catch in May 2024.
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Surreal, uncanny, seductive: step into Graham Little’s world
Scottish artist Graham Little presents his first US retrospective at The FLAG Art Foundation in New York
By Hannah Silver Published
-
The cosmos meets art history in Vivian Greven’s New York exhibition
Vivian Greven’s ‘When the Sun Hits the Moon’, at Perrotin in New York City, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in the USA
By Emily McDermott Published
-
The Met’s ‘The Real Thing: Unpacking Product Photography’ dissects the avant-garde in early advertising
A new exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York explores the role of product photography and advertising in shaping the visual language of modernism
By Zoe Whitfield Published
-
Tony Notarberardino’s Chelsea Hotel Portraits preserve a slice of bygone New York life
‘Tony Notarberardino: Chelsea Hotel Portraits, 1994-2010’, on show at New York’s ACA Galleries, is the photographer’s ode to the storied hotel he calls home and its eclectic clientele
By Hannah Silver Published
-
‘LA Gun Club’: artist Jane Hilton on who’s shooting who
‘LA Gun Club’, an exhibition by Jane Hilton at New York’s Palo Gallery, explores American gun culture through a study of targets and shooters
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Detroit Institute of Arts celebrates Black cinema
‘Regeneration: Black Cinema 1898-1971’ at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) brings lost or forgotten films, filmmakers and performers to a contemporary audience
By Anne Soward Published
-
BLUM marks 30 years of Japanese contemporary art in America
BLUM will take ‘Thirty Years: Written with a Splash of Blood’ to its New York space in September 2024, continuing its celebration of Japanese contemporary art in America
By Timothy Anscombe-Bell Published