WattsOS
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Untitled (for Parkett no. 15)
1988 · Etching, drypoint, and aquatint, printed in color, bound into journal
composition 9 1/4 x 8 7/16" (23.5 x 21.5 cm)
Museum of Modern Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Mario Merz
Italian-Swiss, 1925
Milan, Italy
PrintmakingConceptual ArtArte Povera
Representation
None documented
7
Institutional Exhibitions
30
Works in Collection
55
Assets Indexed
4
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
100%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Movements
- • Conceptual Art
- • Arte Povera
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
By Way Of: Material and Motion in the Guggenheim Collection
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
2024
No image
Contemporary Print Acquisitions, 1986�1988
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1988
No image
Contemporary Works from the Collection
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1986
No image
Contemporary Drawings
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1984–1985
No image
Recent Acquisitions from the Department of Drawings
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1983
About
Why this artist matters now
Mario Merz was an Italian artist and a founding figure of the Arte Povera movement who worked across sculpture, installation, and drawing using unconventional materials including neon, igloo forms, and found objects. Beginning in the 1960s, he developed a distinctive vocabulary of spiral and Fibonacci sequences embedded into works made from humble substances such as clay, branches, and copper wire. His igloos, constructed from glass tubes and neon tubing, became signature forms that interrogated shelter, geometry, and the relationship between natural growth and human construction. Merz's practice rejected the aesthetics of refinement in favor of material directness and conceptual rigor rooted in postwar European modernism.
Source: Gladstone · Trust score: 100% · Updated 1mo ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Conceptual Art
Medium
Printmaking
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (30)
View all 30 artworks →
Record
Images
Related artists
Adjacent in the graph
Jannis Kounellis
Exhibited alongside
Rashid Johnson
Exhibited alongside
Mona Hatoum
Exhibited alongside
Senga Nengudi
Exhibited alongside
Richard Artschwager
Shared movement
Gerhard Richter
Shared movement
Luis Camnitzer
Shared movement
Eugenio Dittborn
Shared movement
Gary Hill
Shared movement
Andrea Büttner
Shared movement
Christopher Williams
Also printmaking
Dana Schutz
Also printmaking
Record
Movements and affiliations
Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
In collection
Tate
Market
Auction sale history
Houses that have sold works by this artist at auction
Network
Related Artists
Market
Auction History
Range: $378 – $221,000
| Work | Auction House | Date | Estimate | Hammer Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christie's | Nov 2025 | $7,000 – $10,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | Jun 2025 | £12,000 – £18,000 | £15,120 | |
| Christie's | May 2025 | $6,000 – $8,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | May 2025 | $15,000 – $20,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | Apr 2025 | €15,000 – €20,000 | €18,900 | |
| Christie's | Oct 2024 | €70,000 – €100,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | Oct 2024 | €15,000 – €20,000 | €18,900 | |
| Christie's | May 2023 | €15,000 – €20,000 | €12,600 | |
| Christie's | Apr 2023 | $700 – $1,000 | $378 | |
| Christie's | Mar 2023 | £8,000 – £12,000 | £23,940 |
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