Gerhard Merz (born 25 May 1947 in Mammendorf , Kreis Fürstenfeldbruck ) is a German artist.

From 1969 to 1973, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich and became a student in the masterclass of Rudi Tröger . Between 1964 and 1969, inspired by Francis Bacon and Uwe Lausen, expressive pictures emerged and subsequently metal sculptures. Since the beginning of the 1970s, he has been increasingly successful with spatial installations in which he drew references to the history of literature and art, as well as to political history, as well as the development of large-format, monochrome images with lines of pencil strokes. In the building of the Federal Foreign Office in Bonn, he designed a wall through a large polychromatic mosaic.

Starting in 1977, he was represented at Documenta in Kassel four times in a row.

In 1983 he was awarded the Arnold-Bode-Prize of the documenta – City of Kassel . In 1991 he received a reputation as a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf . In 1998/1999 he was commissioned to design the rooms within the framework of the old building renovation of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin in a joint project with the architect Hans Kollhoff. In 2004 he moved to a professorship at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich.

Gerhard Merz lives and works in Munich and in Pescia , Italy.