Mario Merz

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.