| PAOLO SCHEGGI | Catalog | |
| a retrospective 1957 – 1971 | ||
| curated by BRUNO CORÀ | ||
| 6 october 2007 – 19 january 2008 |
Galleria Il Ponte opens the autumn season with a retrospective exhibition dedicated to Paolo Scheggi. His intense but short creative career, which covered the period from the late 1950s to 1971, the year of his premature death, was represented by a nucleus of works, the majority of which are on display for the first time: from his Lamiere policrome (Polychrome Metal Sheets) of 1958 to the Intersuperfici curve a zone riflesse (Curved Intersurfaces with Reflected Areas) made using overlapping canvases, up to his Strutture modulari (Modular Structures) in punched cardboard from 1970 and a corpus of over one hundred papers from 1957 to 1962.
The fundamental elements of his artistic career stand out right from the start: in his very first works in cut, overlapping, bent, painted metal from before 1960, and in his first works on paper which still clearly show his attempt to distance himself from the art informel tradition. In 1962, Scheggi intensified his research into plastic language through ‘the dialectical contradiction between space and object, the absurd (yet only thinkable) definition of the void’. And so we get the first Intersuperfici curve a zone riflesse. By using overlapping canvases, he accentuates the three-dimensional factor; he accentuates the holes by making round voids with perfect edges and curling the borders up towards the inside. When the spatial structure was ready, he would paint it all in a single colour: red, black, blue, orange,… In the second half of the 1960s, the artist mainly made Intersuperfici modulari (Modular Intersurfaces) with a regular geometrical structure where the cut is made following precise geometrical intentions, bringing out the rhythm of the modules: by repeating series of regular circular openings and overlapping in various different ways, he creates a feeling of depth.
The surface, a chromatic element, refracts the light; by crossing the different depths of space, he creates a different perception. The artist gives a single space-time dimension back to the work, which the observer actively participates in until he really does become part of the work later on in his performances. And here we have it: Scheggi’s lightning and far-sighted career.
