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Lot Essay
An incredible large drawing, extraordinary for its quality and spirituality, for the mystery that Marisa Merz succeeds in impressing on each of her works. One of my absolute favourite drawings. For me, a masterpiece that will always be impressed on my mind. Enchanted is the exact word to describe myself, in front of this image: I, who am someone never at a loss for words, was suddenly totally incapable of articulating them. The other one of us, who never misses a thing, realised this: so thanks to him, one spring morning, I found it at home. I hadn't dared to ask to acquire it; I was insatiable, at that time, and art seemed like an illness that was devouring me.
The joy, the gratitude to the other, the astonishment at such riches that had arrived in the house. Not even a celebration, due to a strange embarrassment before a work that was so desired, that I had not thought of making mine in this way, caught out. The first days, I went to look at it in secret.
A fantastic drawing: who knows how long it took Marisa to complete it! Her drawings strongly recall her knitting with copper wire: the artist knits away and weaves little shoes, large and small silhouettes, of various shapes, that she hangs on the wall for her installations. The drawing is also like an intricate woven textile: Marisa passes and re-passes with the pencil endlessly, until the mysterious figure (to me, a woman's face) emerges, which seems to want to escape an insistent, but superficial gaze. It's all worked out, Marisa wants for her drawings - as for all her works - intense attention, which stems from the mind but also from the soul, to encounter the magic of her things. Many artists have come to our house, important and famous, and also young emerging artists from the most diverse geographical origins: there is no one who has not stopped at length in front of this mesmerising drawing. Impossible to describe it in words: how can you describe the projection of a complex, sophisticated human being, through the lights and shades skillfully impressed to give her an image, a portrait that characterises her personality? The universe that Marisa expresses is one which is unique, not so much difficult to decipher, as not easy to penetrate.
She would observe you in silence, in front of her work, but she would never reveal to you her truth. She would simply wait until you succeeded in gaining your own dimension, in her reality.
The joy, the gratitude to the other, the astonishment at such riches that had arrived in the house. Not even a celebration, due to a strange embarrassment before a work that was so desired, that I had not thought of making mine in this way, caught out. The first days, I went to look at it in secret.
A fantastic drawing: who knows how long it took Marisa to complete it! Her drawings strongly recall her knitting with copper wire: the artist knits away and weaves little shoes, large and small silhouettes, of various shapes, that she hangs on the wall for her installations. The drawing is also like an intricate woven textile: Marisa passes and re-passes with the pencil endlessly, until the mysterious figure (to me, a woman's face) emerges, which seems to want to escape an insistent, but superficial gaze. It's all worked out, Marisa wants for her drawings - as for all her works - intense attention, which stems from the mind but also from the soul, to encounter the magic of her things. Many artists have come to our house, important and famous, and also young emerging artists from the most diverse geographical origins: there is no one who has not stopped at length in front of this mesmerising drawing. Impossible to describe it in words: how can you describe the projection of a complex, sophisticated human being, through the lights and shades skillfully impressed to give her an image, a portrait that characterises her personality? The universe that Marisa expresses is one which is unique, not so much difficult to decipher, as not easy to penetrate.
She would observe you in silence, in front of her work, but she would never reveal to you her truth. She would simply wait until you succeeded in gaining your own dimension, in her reality.