Communion and Prophylaxis: Mario and Marisa Merz, Dr. Leslie Cozzi

Magazzino Italian Art presents a four-part lecture series Arte Povera: Art of Collaboration curated by 2020-21 Magazzino Scholar-in-Residence Teresa Kittler.

In the fourth lecture of the series, Communion and Prophylaxis: Mario and Marisa Merz, Dr. Leslie Cozzi, Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs at The Baltimore Museum of Art, discusses the early sculpture and later work on paper of Mario Merz and Marisa Merz, lynchpins of the Turinese Arte Povera milieu. By analysing individual works in light of contemporary geopolitics, developments in Italian feminism, and the new domestic landscape of the period, the talk will explore how together the husband-and-wife pair engaged in a dialectic that enabled them to respond productively to one another’s practices while still maintaining their individual points of view. Paying particular attention to the problematic of separatism and the professional challenges facing women artists in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, the talk will offer a new reading that recasts Marisa Merz’s well-documented interest in alchemy and communion in terms of contemporary developments in reproductive health technology.