PAOLO SCHEGGI

Paolo Scheggi (Settignano, Florence, 1940 - Rome, 1971) was one of the protagonists of the Italian neo-avant-garde art movement of the 1960s, in a spatialist and monochromatic direction.
In 1961 he moved to Milan, where he formed friendships and collaborations with the best-known artists of the period: from Lucio Fontana, who became his mentor from 1962, to Agostino Bonalumi; from the founders of Azimuth, Enrico Castellani and Piero Manzoni, to the exponents of programmed and kinetic art, from Gianni Colombo to Alberto Biasi.
His Intersuperfici, works made up of three overlapping monochrome canvases furrowed by irregular, elliptical or perfectly circular openings, are the matrix of a unique multidisciplinary research that in just ten years crossed all languages, from painting to architecture, from fashion to design, from poetry to theatre, and was analysed by the most important critics of the time, from Germano Celant to Carlo Belloli.
As early as 1965 his work featured in international exhibitions and publications: Gillo Dorfles included him in the pages of the Parisian magazine "L'Oeil", in the so-called Pittura-Oggetto (Object-Painting); he joined the Nouvelle Tendance movement and exhibited with the Zero and Nul Groups.
In 1966 he is the youngest artist invited to the XXXIII Venice Biennale, he is in Paris at the XXI Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Section Constructiviste, at the Kunsthalle in Bern in the exhibition Weiss auf Weiss and in New York, at the Roland Gibson Art Foundation, in Italian Abstract Art.
In 1967 he represents Italy, together with other artist colleagues, at the Cinquième Biennale de Paris. Manifestation biennale et internationale des jeunes artistes and at the Exposition International de Beaux-Arts de Montréal.
From 1968 onwards, his research moved in a performative direction: his actions in urban spaces tackled the themes of collective ritual and anticipated the long period of Performance Art.
The last two years saw him engaged in radical conceptual research, also in dialogue with Vincenzo Agnetti, consisting of black, white and mirrored environments crossed by metaphysical words and music.
His work is present in major international public collections.

Ilaria Bignotti, Scientific Curator of the Paolo Scheggi Archive

Life and research The works