As the Frieze Art Fair approaches, London’s museums and galleries bring out their most scintillating, eye catching shows. Tamara Corm (above) spent two years curating Pace London‘s fabulous and far-reaching retrospective of Italian artist Mario Merz. Corm is standing in front of one of Merz’s iconic igloo sculptures, made from glass, marble and neon. Merz used neon decades before Tracey Emin. He belonged to the 1960’s Arte Povera movement where artists based around Turin worked with everyday, simple earthy materials like sticks, bottles and plants.
The Pace exhibition is Merz’s first in a commercial gallery in London for over twenty years. Ignored by American collectors, the European sixties Arte Povera movement is making a comeback with seven different shows slated in London this month.
Turner Prize winning Sir Anish Kapoor, who was commissioned to create a permanent sculpture for London’s Olympic Park, is a fan. Here he is at the opening party last week with Pace Executive Director Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst on his right.
Some other VIP’s at the party, including Dave the Wave color-coordinated (as usual) to Merz’s gorgeous mixed media on canvas.
Corm is looking pretty fetching at the opening. Read some of my other top tips in Indagare, from Walker Evans and Andreas Gursky at the Barbican to Ai Weiwei at Blenheim Palace, it’s all covered in my Indagare article.
And whatever you do, don’t miss the knock-your-socks-off Anselm Keifer show at the Royal Academy. Splurge on the headphones. The German artist hugely influenced by WWII gives a great tour.
October, 2014
