Some months ago I accompanied Mario Merz to see an exhibition of the work of Savoldo, a 16th-century painter of the Scuola Veneta. Upon our return, while we were discussing the paintings, Merz spoke to me about the “mysterious simplification” of contemporary art: “We don’t know why we have ended up with this simplification, but we do know that it isn’t tied to the story of society. It is a mystery. The paintings of Dürer, of Titian are rich in narrative content and this is one reason they are well received.”

In Merz’s works, this mysterious simplification doesn’t lie in the telling, but in the