Curated by Matilde Guidelli-Guidi

A new long-term installation at Dia:Beacon of work by Mario Merz brings the Italian into conversation with his many international peers in the foundation’s collection, providing a refreshingly transnational picture of Merz’s practice and, by extension, of the artistic discourse of the 1960s and ’70s. Among the new acquisitions and loans the show comprises are Teatro Cavallo (Horse Theater), one of the neon assemblages that inaugurated Merz’s engagement with Arte Povera in 1967, and Tavolo spirale (Spiral Table), 1982, a creative collaboration with his fellow artist and partner, Marisa Merz. While Mario Merz’s iconic forms (igloos, spirals, Fibonacci spirals) have most persistently been viewed through the lens of Italian art, Dia’s exhibition will offer a broader, more complex view of the prolific artist’s social and environmentally sensitive practice.

— Elizabeth Mangini