About
Mario Merz was born in Milan in 1925, where he died in 2003. His work has been collected by museums worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid. Major exhibitions include “Mario Merz,” Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (1972); Kunsthalle Basel (1975); Musée d'art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1975); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1980); “Mario Merz at MOCA,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1989); “Mario Merz: A Retrospective," Guggenheim Museum, New York (1989), a two-venue retrospective at Castello di Rivoli and Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Turin (2005), organized by Fondazione Merz, and “Mario Merz: Che Cos’è una Casa?,” Fondazione Merz, Turin (2010–11). He received the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2003.
