Cestone

Cestone takes the form of a wicker basket hung high on the wall. During this period, Merz was producing a series of artworks based on traditional domestic items. Pursuing his questioning of objects, Merz, who had these works made by artisans, produced things whose appearance renders them easily identifiable but whose form makes them unusable. Echoes of a rural life and traditional know-how that was on the verge of being erased by an Italy enamoured with modernity; these wicker objects are also large enough to be considered shelters, like his Igloos. In opposition to the industrialism of American Minimalism, the basket and the cone enabled him to combine the contemporary avant-garde with the most archaic of crafts. Cestone is one of the earliest Arte Povera works by the artist, who exhibited it for the first time at the Sperone gallery in January 1968 and subsequently on numerous occasions, including in "Op Losse Schroeven. Situaties en Cryptostructuren" in Amsterdam in 1969.