Paolo Scheggi

Studio Brescia Arte Contemporanea, Brescia
Private Collection, Italy
Lagorio Arte Contemporanea, Brescia
Private Collection, Italy
Galleria Tega, Milan
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly brighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Visible only when examined upon extremely close inspection in raking light, there are very faint stretcher impressions towards the extreme outer edges, which are inherent to the artist's choice of medium and working process. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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Executed in 1966, at the height of his short but intensely creative career, Intersuperficie is a prime example of Paolo Scheggi’s celebrated series of ‘Intersuperfici’ works, where he creates unique rythmic compositions by superimposing several canvasses on top of each other. The use of deep blue hues and the playful relationship between light and shadow created by the curved open zones, give this work a mesmerizing and almost hypnotic impression. Deeply rooted in Lucio Fontana’s theories of spatialism, Paolo Scheggi started experimenting with his own ideas in bringing space into a two-dimensional practice; his monochrome shaped canvasses exist between painting and sculpture.

Scheggi, then only 26 years old, in the same year Intersuperficie was created, was invited to be part of the most important exhibition of international art, the XXXIII Biennale Internazionale d’arte di Venezia where his works were hung in a room next to work by Augusto Bonalumi. 1966 also marked the first time Scheggi exhibited with the other experimental artists including Fontana and Castellani, even though he had forged relationships with the Azimuth artists as early as 1962.  A year prior to this, the artist joined the Nove Tendencije movement and began to exhibit with figures from Zero and Nul, which facilitated the growth of his reputation beyond Italy. All were united in their defiance of artistic expression, and their strict adherence to matters of form and space. Above all, the artists of the ‘Pittura Oggetti’ movement went beyond the figurative and the abstract in order to stress and explore the object nature of their paintings.

As a seminal figure in this rich artistic decade, Scheggi’s canvases are firmly grounded in the history of art, interlinked with the accomplishments of his predecessor, Fontana, who followed Scheggi’s career closely. Where Fontana’s slashed canvases encourage a metaphysical notion of looking beyond, Scheggi takes this one step further and asks the viewer to look within the canvas itself as he investigates the potential of the void. The creation of these complex spaces meant that Scheggi could explore the counterpoint of perception and spatial interpretation, a dynamic that is masterfully displayed in the present work.