Mario Merz Tacita Dean, 2002

"I had already met Mario three times before that summer in San Gimignano. The first time was in Bologna—I had seen him, observed him, and in the end, after dinner, I approached him and told him he looked exactly like my father. He kissed my hand and left. After that encounter, I pestered the museum’s official photographer to get a picture of him; she promised she would send it, but never did. I wanted to place the images of the two men side by side to document the resemblance, to prove my objectivity. I saw him again in Paris—I ran into him and Marisa having breakfast in Place des Vosges. And then again at the Venice Biennale, where I shamelessly tried to photograph him with a borrowed camera before the battery died and the rightful owner took it back. That’s why in San Gimignano, when I walked into that garden and saw Mario at the head of the table having lunch under the trees, I felt an uncontrollable urge to resume watching him. When I came back the next time, I brought my video camera. For a week, people accompanied me around looking for a subject for my project, but I couldn’t find anything. And every evening we all had dinner together around the table, under the trees, and I could observe my true—and seemingly unreachable—object of desire. On the last day, I had no choice, I had to try. After a chocolate and berry gelato, I said: 'Mario, can I film?' 'Alright,' he replied, 'But no talking.' So that afternoon in the garden, at the table under the trees, we shot the film. Mario picked up a large pine cone and placed it in his lap. While Mario chatted, the sun flickered on and off with spontaneous and clumsy effects of light and shadow, the funereal tolling of bells drifted in from the main square, cicadas chirped, stopping and resuming at will, and crows flew back and forth from the roof. He changed various chairs and spots in the garden, and I managed to shoot four reels before the sun was obscured by threatening clouds and a storm broke out. But something else happened. Suddenly I no longer recognized my father’s features in Mario’s face, nor in the movement of his hands or the way he walked in small steps. It seemed as though the very origin of my desire had self-destructed and that by making the film I had purified myself of my subjectivity. In the end, Mario Merz had become Mario Merz to me. It was as if the deceptive resemblance to my father had been nothing more than the means to make me shoot a film of Mario in the garden that afternoon in San Gimignano. And the striking and unsettling resemblance to my father—I could now barely see it."

— Tacita Dean, “Arte all’Arte VII”, 2002

On the occasion of the VII edition of Arte all’Arte, curator Emanuela De Cecco invited Tacita Dean to participate. At the Mensano social club, she screens a new 16 mm film, eight and a half minutes long, shot specifically for the exhibition in San Gimignano: a kind of poetic and focused portrait of Mario Merz that took shape during the preparation period of the exhibition.

"The work of Tacita Dean (Canterbury, UK, 1965) takes shape across a variety of media, from drawing to photography to sound, but the artist is internationally known primarily for her 16 mm films. Shot with long takes and a fixed camera, often silent, they create a sense of stillness in which an enigmatic and mysterious atmosphere prevails, where the narrative—frequently inspired by real events—preserves a space in which the viewer is free to confront their own fears and desires. Among the recurring elements are water, images of the coastline where land meets sea, and abandoned architecture—silent witnesses to past lives. In more than one film, the lighthouse appears as a central narrative motif or significant detail. The cyclical regularity of the emitted light signal contrasts with the immeasurable vastness of the surrounding landscape and, as a man-made structure, isolated and surrounded by the immensity of the sea, it becomes in turn a metaphor for the human condition.
(…)
Tacita Dean presents a new 16 mm film, eight and a half minutes long, shot specifically for Arte all’Arte: a kind of poetic and concentrated portrait of Mario Merz that took shape during the preparation period of the exhibition and found its ideal placement in the small cinema within the Mensano social club, a few kilometers from Casole di Val d’Elsa. A unique work filmed by the English artist: fragments of conversation on an afternoon in the garden, the sudden shift of light due to the arrival of a storm, moments of silence, a few spontaneous words, comments on daily rhythms, and the intense presence of the protagonist. A glimpse of Marisa Merz, an artist featured in the exhibition, can be seen, and other voices are heard. Mario Merz, in addition to being a kind of tribute to one of the most important figures in Italian and international art from the postwar period to today, stands as a poetic reflection on the passage of time—a recurring theme throughout Tacita Dean’s entire body of work.

The participation of the English artist in Arte all’Arte is completed with the creation of a series of drawings on alabaster, exhibited in the spaces of the Chiesa delle Serve di Maria in Casole d’Elsa: Tacita Dean worked on six alabaster slabs with her delicate and intentionally uncertain line, engraving maps of imaginary territories that seem to emerge directly from the veins of the material itself. Upon closer inspection, one can make out paths, faintly sketched writings, and small drawings."

Emanuela De Cecco, “Arte all’Arte VII”, 2002

Credits

Tacita Dean
Mario Merz, 2002
16mm colour film, optical sound, 8’30’’ / Film 16 mm a colori con colonna sonora ottica
Mensano, Casole d’Elsa
Arte all’Arte VII

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