Mario Schifano Installation shot 5Magazzino Italian Art
On view through January 8, 2024
Mario Schifano: The Rise of the ‘60s is the first major survey of work from the 1960s and '70s by the Roman painter born in Libya.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 3Magazzino Italian Art
On view there are 80 works, the great majority on loan from international collections, including 12 from Fondazione Maurizio Calvesi Collection that have never been exhibited before.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 2Magazzino Italian Art
The exhibition is presented on the sixtieth anniversary of Schifano’s first visit to the United States—a turning point in his career—
and includes works from the beginning of the 1960s made in homage to Italy’s painters of commercial billboards.
Mario Schifano, 'Particolare di propaganda,' 1962.Magazzino Italian Art
With their painterly play on the logos of companies such as Coca-Cola and Esso, these works represent a parallel, independent development to American Pop Art.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 11Magazzino Italian Art
Also on view are series including his monochromes, emulsion canvases dedicated to TV Landscapes, and photographs from a road trip in the United States.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 7Magazzino Italian Art
While keenly attuned to the currents of the moment, Schifano also drew continually from, and commented on, the historic work of artists including Giacomo Balla, Umberto Boccioni, Leonardo da Vinci, Piero della Francesca and Kazimir Malevich.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 1Magazzino Italian Art
For Schifano, painting was a form of wandering, in which he brought together his encounters with art history, photography, current events, love and sex: or tutto (everything), as he titled one of his paintings.
His work was an all-encompassing practice that reflected both his own energies and the zeal of a generation of writers, poets, and intellectuals.
Mario Schifano Installation shot 12Magazzino Italian Art