The approach of Mario Merz, Arte Povera artist, explores going beyond the frame and the two-dimensional. In 1968, his first igloo appeared, a mode of housing which allows the artist to create a clean space in any museum or exhibition space and to establish a landscape proposal there. This type of primitive construction, a sort of shelter, allows him to develop a relationship with the world based on the idea of concentration.
In addition to this reflection, he proposed, in 1976, the concept of proliferation in the form of the spiral: an expanding form in space, it also symbolizes time and infinity.
La Casa condenses all of this research. Abolishing the flatness of the painting, Mario Merz integrates a snail shell, an animal element which synthesizes the habitat and the spiral. The presence of this shell affirms in a single gesture a multiple presence: the living, the habitat, space and time.
Source: Frac Poitou-Charentes notice
