Discovering the Merz Archive
The Artist Archive is a precious ally for the protection and promotion of the artistic and economic heritage of an artist’s life, in favor of the future of his production, in aid of gallery owners and in support of collectors.
Today we discover the Merz Foundation and its Archive, which carry on the knowledge and enhancement of the works of Mario and Marisa Merz thanks to the commitment of their daughter Beatrice, with the presence of a scientific committee.
The committee is composed of Frances Morris (Director at Tate Modern, London), Vicente Todolí (Artistic Advisor Hangar Bicocca, Milan), Richard Flood (Former Director of Special Project & Curator at Large New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York) and Mariano Boggia (Merz’s Collection Manager).
The Merz Foundation is based in Turin, a contemporary art center established in 2005, with the aim of hosting exhibitions, events, educational activities and carrying out research and in-depth study of the art of Mario and Marisa Merz, both important exponents of Arte Povera.
The Foundation alternates exhibitions dedicated to Mario and Marisa Merz as moments of reflection and study with large site-specific projects by national and international artists invited to deal with the space of the Foundation and its content, without neglecting research on the new generations for which exhibition events are regularly organized.
The Merz Archive is housed in the same building, which has the task of organizing knowledge and promoting the safeguarding of the artist’s activity by collecting documentation regarding his work.
The Merz Archive was created to make up for the artist’s lack of cataloging of the works.
Initially, a first register was created starting from the existing publications, subsequently supplemented by a screening to map the placement of the works in the most important international collections, both public and private.
Meanwhile, the Archive has begun the collection and systematization of documents, photographs, publications, printed materials, correspondence in order to catalog the artist’s production.
The Archive proceeds to register the works which, according to the unquestionable assessment of the Scientific Committee, it deems most relevant for the purposes of defining the catalog raisonné; also reserves the right to ask for the work to be viewed.
Although still in the implementation phase and constant research, the Archive is a reference point for collectors, gallery owners and scholars who require information for their research or confirmations on the works that are presented on the market.
The Archive also provides advice on conservation and restoration in order to define a universally valid restoration practice.
Requests for certification of authenticity are also very frequent. The Merz Archive does not issue authentications for the works of Mario Merz: it produces an Archival Authentication for all those works that the Scientific Committee considers authentic and which will make up the catalog raisonné.
In this way, the Merz Archive acts as a guarantor of the protection of the authenticity and integrity of the works of Mario Merz, so as to prevent the spread of false or counterfeit works on the market.The fundamental objective of the Merz Archive is the dissemination of knowledge of Mario Merz’s artistic heritage thanks to the creation of the catalog, ordering and systematization of the data and documents subject to archiving.
Fundamental for the Archive will be to digitize the documentation and automate the archiving procedure of the works of art in a simple and innovative way thanks to the use of professional tools capable of responding to the highest standards of security and privacy, for a constant dialogue with collectors. and market players.
Among these, Art Rights, a platform for the management and certification of works of art which, thanks to Blockchain technology, offers the opportunity to create the first “Passport of the work of art” in support of not Artists and Collectors, but for the benefit of the important work done by the Artist Archives.
And you, are you ready to discover the Merz Archive?
