The Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz’s first ever exhibition in a Greek museum opened on 22 October in Athens. The show has been organised by Neon, a non-profit organisation founded by the Greek collector Dimitris Daskalopoulos, and the Fondazione Merz, which is preparing to publish the artist’s first catalogue raisonné, dedicated solely to Merz’s igloo sculptures, next autumn.
One igloo work, Igloo con albero (1969-2002), is also included in the exhibition. Merz first started creating the domed structures in 1968 as a way of expressing his pre-occupation with the fundamental needs of existence—shelter, food and man’s relationship to nature. The circular shape of the igloo also relates to Merz’s long-held fascination with mathematical sequences, particularly the Fibonacci spiral, an exponential series of numbers that underlies the growth patterns of natural life.
“Mario Merz made nature, numbers and politics co-exist, he is one of the most insightful social critics of the public realm,” says Elina Kountouri, the director of Neon. “His work resonates with the turbulent situation in Greece over the past five years, where the whole value system has been re-examined. Merz could never have predicted how instructive his work would be in today’s polarised Europe.”
A large section of the show is dedicated to Merz’s writings, which are treated for the first time as fully part of his artistic output. Neon writings, paintings and drawings are also included in Mario Merz: Numbers are prehistoric, which is open at the Museum of Cycladic Art until 31 January 2016.
