Marisa Merz's 'Haunted' Works at Thomas Dane Gallery in Naples

The Thomas Dane Gallery in Naples is hosting a rare exhibition of Marisa Merz (Turin, 1926–2019), the elusive female representative of Arte Povera. Curated by Douglas Fogle, who described her works as 'inhabited by ghosts,' the show features twenty pieces installed in the gallery's light-filled spaces within Villa Ruffo, an apartment once belonging to the Croce family. The exhibition emphasizes intimacy, with the first room displaying three clay sculptures on a white rectangular base. Seven mixed-media works on paper from 2002–2003 maintain Merz's minimal language, while later pieces (Untitled, 2012 and Untitled, 2016) introduce new formal elements with a more baroque and scenographic dimension. A highlight is a triangular sculpture in copper and paraffin resting on a Persian carpet, first exhibited in 1995 at Kunstmuseum Winterthur. Merz's recent institutional recognition includes a 2007 exhibition at Madre in Naples, the 2013 Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, and a 2017 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The exhibition runs in Naples after seventeen years, creating a dialogue with art history from Byzantine icons to Medardo Rosso's wax sculptures.