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Gillian Schuyler
Professor Bianco
English Composition and Seminar
Semester 1 September 8, 2008
Mario Merz’s A Mallarmé
Stemming from a turbulent world issue, Mario Merz’s A Mallarmé makes a bold statement to provoke thought and change. No really. With the use of neon tubing, he spells the French phrase ‘un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard’, which translated becomes ‘a throw of the dice never will abolish chance’. This phrase is puzzling in many ways, but it certainly gets the thought process rolling. When paired with the effect given by the base supporting the tubing, the effect is a clear declaration of the artist’s opinion on the current state of affairs.
The piece is actually quite simple. Taking all shades of newspaper (ranging from brown, tan, beige and customary gray-white), he bundled them together in stacks roughly two feet high (each stack varies slightly by the inch) and they arranged them in two rows of twenty-four. He and his wife utilize arte povera, which uses “everyday techniques to shape humble materials… into artworks that generate meantingful experiences.” Most of the newspapers are differing issues of ‘La Stampa’, an Italian newspaper, but there are three Arabic newspapers as well. Their common factor is quite glaring; they all have front page news covering George Bush and the War on Terror. Atop this multitude of newsprint is the harsh neon lighting of the French verse from a famous poem by Stéphane Mallarmé. The effect is not flattering, as if Merz were trying to show his audience that when thrust into the unforgiving light, the American President’s conviction to continue with the War on Terror is just ugly.
Mario Merz’s opinion on the Iraqi war is not all that surprising when his past is taken into consideration. During World War II, he joined the anti-Fascist group Giustizia e Libertà and was arrested for his efforts. Fascism is the belief in a single military power in control of the populous and puts the community before the individual in every aspect. They believe that the human race is always going to be warring, and that this should just be accepted as fact. Merz probably finds the War on Terror hitting a little too close to the mark of fascism and therefore automatically lashes out at it.
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