Mario Merz
My home’s wind, 1978

Mario Merz built houses repeatedly – often in the organic form of an igloo or yurt. He usually used materials without obvious intrinsic value: found objects, stones, deadwood and glass. He layered the pieces on top of one another like a nomad, without fixating them, so that the houses could be taken apart again and re-erected at a new site. His igloos have shaped the image of Merz’s art all over the world. However, the variability and subtlety Merz employed in this elementary form, and how diverse the meanings are that he gave them, can only be discovered in the wealth of the many versions he created.

Merz was an intelligent and sensitive man who spent his life trying to confront social superficiality with contents and fantasy. His igloo titled “My home’s wind” is a masterpiece of poetic imagery and has all the characteristics of a magical situation. The entire construct has a lightness that bor- ders on the ephemeral and transports an atmosphere that lies between liberation and melancholy. The principle of openness has found its metaphor here, and the wind’s movement attains a sensual quality. I move with the wind that originates in the past and carries me into the future. I sense the spiritual freedom that it conveys, and I experience the clarity as an approach to life.

It is precisely this physical intensity that gives Mario Merz’s work a special presence. A substance is found here that, like a puzzle, doesn’t immediately provide the key to understanding. This increases the fascination for a work such as “My home’s wind”. Merz creates a location in time for people, without anchoring them there. The entrance to this location can also be hovering above the floor – like the red car door in this filigree igloo.

The publication “My home’s wind” (2011) is also part of our Mario Merz Series.