This small publication has been printed on the occasion of the exhibition Marisa e Mario Merz. A Pencil Point Can Surpass Consciousness curated by Mariano Boggia (27 April 2021 – 31 January 2021) held at Fondazione Merz.

For the first time in the Fondazione’s spaces, Marisa and Mario’s work meets in a unified path, almost as if to recreate the dialogical dimension, the intense and profound, yet constant exchange in their work, while maintaining individual points of view.

“Marisa and Mario Merz. a pencil point can surpass consciousness” is an unprecedented exhibition project, curated by Mariano Boggia, which presents the work of Marisa and Mario Merz in the unusual light of the times.

There have been few exhibitions devoted exclusively to the art of Marisa and Mario together.Their works evidence different modes of expression, but which are closely linked and interacting, in the same way as the two artists were themselves always closely united and inseparable: together they worked in their studio and home, together they travelled through the world, each providing stimuli, encouragement and protection for the other.It was in this proximity that their individual activities took place, sustained by the same energy within a continuity of artistic creation that modified the very nature of time.

An infinite present time is the dimension in which Marisa dedicated herself to studying the structure of the female figure through drawing, painting and sculpture.

In an infinite present time Mario re-proposed his igloo through the use of ever different materials, just as he enriched his reinvented nature with the creation of drawings that appear to be anatomy tables, atlases of zoology, giant herbaria…

Space was also reinvented, and the home-studio is no different to the museum: in this exhibition, a broad range of works, most of which have never been exhibited before, are immersed in a continuous dialogue and occupy a space marked by the neon of the Fibonacci series, in a whirl that poses and reposes Mario’s question as to whether space be curved or straight.
The point of the pencil – artistic practice – enabled Marisa and Mario to “surpass consciousness”, to create an art that is a marvel and that goes beyond all aesthetic, political, sociological and semantic definitions…

Art that is the expression of their very profound thought of freedom.