Guest. Giorgio Verzotti

New appointment of the Guest cycle at the Museo Novecento with Giorgio Verzotti, art critic and curator who on Tuesday 18 June at 6 pm will present the volume “Mario Merz. The artist and the work, materials for a portrait“ (Christian Marinotti editions), introduced by the artistic director of the Museo Novecento Sergio Risaliti and Laura Cherubini.

Mario Merz, materials for a monograph is the first monographic essay published in Italy after the artist’s death (who passed away in 2003). The volume examines the entire creative arc of Merz, a protagonist of European art of the twentieth century, whose works are now preserved in the most important museums and private collections. Starting from his beginnings in post-war Turin, which saw him engaged in figurative painting, the story unfolds through the years around the fateful 1968, when the artist joins the Arte Povera group, and then ends with international recognition, which has come during the eighties and nineties. Each chapter is dedicated to a cycle of works, allowing the reader to confront the genesis of the igloos, of the tables covered with fruit and vegetables, of the large paintings dedicated to the theme of animals, of the use of the Fibonacci numerical series, a formula that runs through the whole the work of Merz and which binds it to a classical humanistic knowledge.

It is precisely the awareness of belonging to a profound cultural and scientific tradition that pushes Merz to renew the language of visual art, it is precisely his knowing that he is the heir of an identity founded over time that allows him to attempt the new, the unknown. The volume is enriched by numerous testimonies, the result of meetings between the author and colleagues and friends of the artist, which clarify aspects of his character and above all highlight his working method, always intuitive, never a priori, faithful to his own. creative rules but ready to modify them according to the characteristics of the exhibition environment, which Merz has always considered with attention and respect.

Giorgio Verzotti

Art critic and curator, he was chief curator at the Castello di Rivoli and the Mart in Rovereto. He was also Artistic Director of Arte Fiera in Bologna. He is a correspondent for the American magazine Artforum, and teaches Aesthetics of the Contemporary at the Catholic University and History of Contemporary Art at Naba, both in Milan.

Laura Cherubini

Curator and art historian, she is the author of essays, interviews and monographs on Italian art of the sixties and seventies and curator of many exhibitions in important museums and art centers, in Italy and abroad. Curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 1990 Venice Biennale, she held the role of vice president of the Madre Museum in Naples and holds the chair of Contemporary Art History at the Brera Academy.