PUSH THE LIMITS

With: Rosa Barba, Sophie Calle, Katharina Grosse, Shilpa Gupta, Mona Hatoum, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir, Bouchra Khalili, Barbara Kruger, Cinthia Marcelle, Shirin Neshat, Maria Papadimitriou, Pamela Rosenkranz, Chiharu Shiota, Fiona Tan, Carrie Mae Weems, Sue Williamson

The Fondazione Merz turns fifteen and in reopening its spaces to the public after the closure caused by COVID 19, it returns and relaunches with a major exhibition project, PUSH THE LIMITS, curated by Claudia Gioia and Beatrice Merz, which already from its title offers an invitation to go further and to work to shape the future.

PUSH THE LIMITS investigates how art takes itself to the limit to move the horizon of thinking, perception and speech ever further in order to introduce new elements; to say yes or no when “normality” falters; to highlight what is proposed in the present and to prevent a situation of merely treading water.

The artists take this opportunity to reaffirm the urgency of unleashing the infinity of possibles.

But what are these limits we need to be pushing at? Cultural, geographical, of identity, sexual, social and of vision. Each historical phase has witnessed them and perhaps today the largest limit and the one that groups them all is the lack of a language capable of describing them in order to overcome them. Thus art can still come to our aid, since a constitutive feature of art is that of working at the crossroads of languages, images, knowledge and of knowing how to cross one’s time and history, at times at a tangent and at times frontally.

Each work on display is a push forward in a space where current codes of behaviour are suspended and transformation becomes possible; where the as if and the almost reality allow a flow of multiple visions and vocabularies relating them to different ways of living, testing them and finding new meaning.

The exhibition which fills the interior and exterior spaces of the Fondazione, is structured as a continuous discourse, presenting questions and different realities, some of which are already understood and seemingly outdated, some are unfamiliar and call for a new system of communication to be explained. 

The exhibition includes some of the most influential voices of contemporary artistic research. Large-scale immersive installations give the visitor a sensory experience. The works operate in political and symbolic dimensions, with philosophical and poetic inspiration. All of the artists have explored the context of belonging in their work, in order to dismantle existing stereotypes and discover new modes of artistic communication.

Artists participating include: Rosa Barba (1972, Agrigento, Italy), Sophie Calle (1953, Paris, France), Katharina Grosse (1961, Freiburg, Germany), Shilpa Gupta (1976, Mumbai, India), Mona Hatoum (1952, Beirut, Lebanon), Jenny Holzer (1950, Gallipolis, Ohio, USA) Emily Jacir (1972, Bethlehem, Palestine), Bouchra Khalili (1975, Casablanca, Morocco), Barbara Kruger (1945, Newark, New Jersey, USA), Cinthia Marcelle (1974, Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Shirin Neshat (1957, Qazvin, Iran), Maria Papadimitriou (1957, Athens, Greece), Pamela Rosenkranz (1979, Uri, Switzerland), Chiharu Shiota (1972, Osaka, Japan), Fiona Tan (1966, Pekanbaru, Indonesia), Carrie Mae Weems (1953, Portland, Oregon, USA), Sue Williamson (1941, Lichfield, United Kingdom).

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue. The volume will include photographic documentation of the project, with contributions from the artists involved alongside philosophers, writers, historians and cultural critics. 

With the support of Regione Piemonte, Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT

The artwork project by Maria Papadimitriou is powered by Onassis Foundation

The artwork project by Emily Jacir is produced by Fondazione Matera-Basilicata 2019 and Comune di Pietrapertosa

We wish to thank the City of Turin and Kuhn & Bülow

Press office: 
SUTTON: Melissa Emery, Melissa [​at​] suttoncomms.com - T +44 (0)207 183 3577
PCM Studio di Paola C. Manfredi: press [​at​] paolamanfredi.com - T +39 02 36769480
Fondazione Merz: Nadia Biscaldi press [​at​] fondazionemerz.org - T +39 011 19719436