The Merz Foundation turns 15 years old. Here are the initiatives to celebrate the event

On Wednesday, April 29, 2020, the Merz Foundation turns 15 years old. To celebrate so many years of activity, the foundation will recall all its wealth of experience with #FondazioneMerzRewind and offer new initiatives, such as a new iteration of the format Scusi, non ho capito and the all-female art exhibition Push the limits.

#FondazioneMerzRewind is an online narrative that collects daily, through its Instagram and Facebook profiles , images, texts and videos to tell the story of its 15-year exhibition history. The Education Department through its Instagram profile (@edu_fondazionemerz) also joins the narrative, recalling the workshops and educational activities entrusted to the artists whose interventions have marked the history of the Foundation.

The format Sorry, I don’t understand, conceived to go against the need of the general public to better understand the languages and thinking behind contemporary artworks through a two-way and shared dialogue with the audience involving authors, intellectuals, professionals and personalities from the academic and business world, will undergo a variation: the dialogues will take place live on Instagram every Sunday in May and June at 4 p.m.30 for about 30 minutes in a transversal and open, accessible and maybe even entertaining way, so that the very human need to meet and talk finds a space even in times of forced but necessary distance.

As for the Push the limits exhibition, the Foundation expects to finish setting up the exhibition curated by Claudia Gioia and Beatrice Merz as soon as possible. The all-female project that investigates the ability of art to constantly place itself at the limits, shifting the axis of thought, perception, and discourse, introducing new elements into the system. It will be a wish the Merz Foundation can make to celebrate its first 15 years of activity and to begin with those yet to come.

“The success of a project is determined by the relationship that is established with the actors involved, whether they are artists, curators, writers or others. This close relationship of trust has made it possible to see dreams come true and to be able to pass them on. And the excitement of seeing them come to life was memorable. - Comments Beatrice Merz, President of the Foundation - This birthday came at a historic moment that caught us all unprepared. Today we are celebrating these 15 years of activity by reviewing what has been accomplished so far but with our eyes firmly set on the coming years, reflecting on the nature of place, space, the role played by artists and their works, and the social function given to an institution. It is time to ask questions; art cannot instill certainty but it can help change the pace of the wheel. It will be necessary to come out of our shells without personalism and stripped of invincibility, offering content to reconnect with a public that will have to come to terms with the necessary processing of collective grief. Artists are experts at posing important questions posed by the human condition in real time, laying bare social structures and revealing their true nature.”

Fifteen years have passed since the restoration and transformation of the former Officine Lancia thermal power plant in Via Limone into the home of a new contemporary art center now known as the Merz Foundation. An ambitious project wanted by Beatrice Merz with the intention of producing unprecedented exhibitions, appointments for the public between visual arts, music and educational workshops, carrying on an intense activity of research and in-depth study of the work of contemporary artists. Opening the foundation’s doors in April 2005 was an exhibition dedicated to Mario Merz, and since then there have been numerous projects alternating between exhibitions dedicated to Mario and Marisa Merz and site-specific, solo or group shows, which have invited 172 artists, including 64 Italians and 107 international artists, to confront the foundation’s space, including Massimo Bartolini, Elisabetta Benassi, Fatma Bucak, Christian Boltanski, Mattew Barney, René Burri, Carlos Garaicoa, Petrit Halilaj, Alfredo Jaar, Sol LeWitt, Masbedo, Mona Hatoum, Emilio Prini, Wael Shawky, Simon Starling, Kara Walker, Lawrence Weiner.

In its fifteen years of activity, the Foundation has created an intense exhibition program of 70 exhibitions, including 9 off-site and 13 international collaborations, 1,605 workshops with more than 70,000 children involved by the educational staff, and 147 events for the public of different kinds that have presented nearly 100 guests including poets, writers, architects, actors, curators, philosophers, anthropologists, critics, filmmakers, dancers and more than 200 musicians.

Another historic initiative of the Merz Foundation is the biennial Mario Merz Prize, which aims to identify personalities in the field of contemporary art and musical composition.

To visit the Merz Foundation website, click here.

The Merz Foundation turns 15 years old. Here are the initiatives to celebrate the event

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