Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Literature
L.M. Barbero, G. Dorfles, La Breve e Intensa Stagione di Paolo Scheggi, Parma: Galleria d'Arte Niccoli, 2002-03, p. 192, no. PS149 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
In 1961 Paolo Scheggi moved to Milan where, like many of his contemporaries, he came under the influence of Lucio Fontana. Fontana’s innovation had been to challenge conventional engagement with the canvas; rather than treating it as an even and unassailable surface, he considered it an adaptable material that could be punctured and torn. This sensibility suffuses Scheggi’s art; his work resists the flat and depthless plane. Intersuperficie curva Bianca belongs to a series of Intersuperficie that owe a debt to the hole-riddled canvases of Fontana’s buchi. Although rooted in his predecessor’s work, Scheggi pursues a distinctive vision. Intersuperficie curva Bianca, like other works from the series, creates depth through layering. Three PVC panels sit one atop the other. Holes are cut into the first two, creating a series of similar but variable spaces into which the viewer is drawn.
These works play with the act of viewing. The viewer’s eye is unable to settle on any particular point; instead it roams continually across, through and into the work. The monochromatic palette compounds this effect; there is no alteration or deepening of color to suggest a focal point. The work engenders a kind of playful disorientation in which the viewer is engaged in a process of perpetual searching.
Alongside contemporaries like Enrico Castellani, Scheggi was one of the most significant Italian artists of the 1960s. His outlook was distinctly modern, and his approach revisionary. In his hands, the canvas became an increasingly malleable form with renewed capacity for depth.
1967 PVC 35 1/4 x 101 3/8 x 1 7/8 in. (89.5 x 257.5 x 5 cm) This work is registered with the Associazione Paolo Scheggi, Milan, under archive number APSM089/0004.
Estimate $500,000 - 600,000
Contact Specialist Brittany Lopez Slater
Head of International Exhibitions
New York
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