10th anniversary
Fondazione Merz
Via Limone 24
10141 Turin
Italy
T +39 011 19719437
info [at] fondazionemerz.org
www.fondazionemerz.org
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It was 2005 when, following her father Mario’s will, Beatrice Merz inaugurated the new location: a 1930 industrial building—formerly a heating plant of the nearby Lancia factory—that was preserved and renovated to become a new Center for Contemporary Art.
“The building where the Fondazione’s programme has evolved has its roots deep in the industrial heart of the city. A place made of walls, divisions and memories that offered the challenge for a confrontation with oneself, with one’s ability and willingness to cross the barriers, physically, conceptually and politically, calling oneself into question to overcome the logic of distance and separation. The multiplicity of points of view has made it possible not only to seek to look for answers but above all to recognise the uncertainties. Artists are experts in accelerating the important issues that arise from being human. They strip down culture to make it appear as it really is.”
–Beatrice Merz
Today, ten years later, we celebrate the Fondazione’s birthday with important collaborations and events. To begin with, the Turin venue hosts the exhibition Tutttovero. Our City, Our Art curated by Francesco Bonami. Once again, the city gets involved in a network: through four separate projects and exhibitions, Fondazione Merz and three other institutions, GAM, Castello di Rivoli and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, display the evolution of public and private collections, a vast artistic heritage for the city of Turin.
Ten years ago, Fondazione Merz inaugurated its gallery spaces with a special exhibition entirely devoted to Mario Merz. Today we pay him tribute by partaking in an important solo show Mario Merz. Città irreale curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, opening May 8 at the Accademia Galleries in Venice.
On the occasion of the 56th International Art Exhibition in Venice the winners of the first edition of the Mario Merz Prize will be announced for both Art and Music sections. Established in 2013, the Prize is held every two years to spotlight young artists and composers who have stood out for the quality and innovation of their artistic research.
To close the ten-year anniversary celebrations, in the fall the Fondazione Merz will collaborate with NEON setting up a Mario Merz exhibition—curated by Paolo Colombo—at the Museum for Cycladic Art in Athens, while its Turin venue will present an important site-specific project by Christian Boltanski curated by Claudia Gioia.
“Thanks to the many ‘builders of thought,’ in these years the Fondazione, which was initially created from an impulse for survival, has matured in terms of its purpose and strengthened itself with opportunities. Set up to be ‘the artist’s house,’ it soon transformed itself into ‘a house for artists,’ hosting increasingly complex and multifaceted projects. Opportunities that take the form of exhibitions, concerts, shows, meetings, acclaim, complaints, criticism, enthusiasm: moments of recklessness, of uncertainty and risk, but above of intuition. It is up to the artist to choose what to about his work. It is up to the public to choose what to see. Self-determination for all.”
–Beatrice Merz
Press contact:
Nadia Biscaldi, press [at] fondazionemerz.org / T +39 011 19719436
