Mario Merz Prize

3rd Edition

The only international award for art and music

Exhibition of the 5 finalists of the 3rd ed. of the Mario Merz Prize art sector

Bertille Bak, Mircea Cantor, David Maljkovic, Maria Papadimitriou, Unknown Friend

curated by Claudia Gioia, Samuel Gross, Beatrice Merz

June 3 – October 6, 2019

Fondazione Merz presents, from Monday 3 June to Sunday 6 October 2019, the collective exhibition of the 5 finalists of the 3rd edition of the Mario Merz Prize for the art sector.

The protagonists of the group are Bertille Bak (France, 1983), Mircea Cantor (Romania, 1977), David Maljkovic (Croatia, 1973), Maria Papadimitriou (Greta, 1957) and Unknown Friend, a duo composed by Stephen G. Rhodes (USA , 1977) and Barry Johnston (USA, 1980).

The exhibition itinerary set up at the headquarters of the Foundation includes very different languages ​​and formal solutions, but united by a powerful interrogative tension towards the present. Multiple stories, individual trajectories that mix with the community and distinct generational events converge in the attempt to build a new language to capture contingent time.

Five different processes of iconization of the present that transform reality into as many tales: the life of the community to which Bertille Bak belongs, the ruins that evoke collective tragedies in the works of Mircea Cantor, the memory and its organization on file in David Malijkovic, the investigation into the social bond in Maria Papadimitrou’s research, a tragicomic narrative that overturns the normal balance between reality and fiction in the ironic attitude of Unknown Friend.

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