(Florence 1940–1971 Rome)
Per una situazione, 1962, titled, signed, dated P. Scheggi Merlini 62 on the stretcher and on the reverse of the canvas, black acrylic on three superimposed canvases, 60 x 70 x 7 cm, in plexiglass box, (AR)

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The work is registered at the Associazione Paolo Scheggi, Milan, under the archive no. APSM004/0001 and will be included in the forthcoming publication of the catalogue raisonné of the Work by Paolo Scheggi curated by Luca Massimo Barbero.
© Paolo Scheggi /SIAE

Provenance:
Galleria Fumagalli, Bergamo
Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto
VAF Stiftung, Frankfurt am Main
VAF 639 (label on the reverse)
MART 1779 (label on the reverse)

Exhibition:
Perugia, CERP, Centro Espositivo Rocca Paolina, Oltre la superficie: attraversamento, estroflessione, disseminazione, 14 July - 2 Septempber 2001, exh. cat. Benucci, Perugia 2001, p. 76 with ill. (titled Intersuperficie nera)
Rovereto Mart, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Un secolo di arte italiana. Lo sguardo del collezionista. Opere della Fondazione VAF / Ein Jahrhundert Italienischer Kunst. Der Blick des Sammlers. Werke der VAF-Stiftung 2 July - 20 November 2005, exh. cat. Skira, Milan 2005, p. 196 with ill.
Karlsruhe, ZKM, Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie. Materialbild. Material picture. Immagine materiale. Italia 1950 – 1965 (Rom Offene Malerei. Das Materialbild im Italien der 1950er und 1969er Jahre), 1 April - 24 August 2008, exh. cat., Silvana editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo 2009, pp. 205, 289 with ill.
Rovereto MART, museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, La magnifica ossessione, 26 October 2012 – 16 February 2014, exh. cat., Electa, Milan 2014, p. 56 with ill.
Riva del Garda (Trento), MAG, Museo Alto Garda in collaboration with MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Oltre il confine della tela, 18 July - 1 November 2015, exh. cat., La Grafica, 2015, pp. 97, 132, no. 43 with ill.

Literature:
Luca Massimo Barbero, Gillo Dorfles, La breve e intensa stagione di Paolo Scheggi, exh. cat., Parma, Galleria d‘Arte Niccoli, 23 November 2002 – 22 February 2003, p. 125, with ill.
K. Wolbert. Idiome der Materialsprache in der Italienischen Kunst / Idiomi del linguaggio materico nell‘arte italiana / idioms of Material Language in the Italian Art, in P. Weibel (ed.) Materialbild. Material picture. Immagine materiale. Italia 1950 -1965 (Rom. Offene Malerei. Das Materialbild im Italien der 1950er und 1960er Jahre), exh. cat. ZKM, Karlsruhe, Silvana editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, 2009, pp. 110, 141, 171 with ill.
Daniela Ferrari, (ed.) Vaf Stiftung. La Collezione. Catalogo generale, Silvana editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, 2012, p. 681 with ill.
Francesca Pola, Paolo Scheggi. The Humanistic Measurement of Space, exh. cat., Robilant+Voena Gallery, London, 2014, Skira Rizzoli, New York 2014, fig. 8, pp. 19, 176 with ill.
Luca Massimo Barbero, Paolo Scheggi, exh. cat. Paris, Tornabuoni Art, Forma Firenze 2015, pp. 60-61 with ill.

Born in Florence in 1940, and after a period of study in Rome and London, Paolo Scheggi moved to Milan in 1961, making it the centre of his artistic experimentation. There, at the epicentre of the most avant-garde creative research, Scheggi encountered the artists of the age – especially the Milanese “objectivits”. From 1962 onwards he also aroused the interest of Lucio Fontana, who followed his research carefully and introduced him at the exhibition held at the Galleria Il Cancello in Bologna that same year. The valuable exhibition catalogue contains an interesting conversation between both artists.
In 1962 Paolo Scheggi realised the work Per una situazione, a balanced composition of an intensely black colour that invites the viewer to explore the empty space that has been so masterfully created within it. The encounter of those openings with light creates a special effect that is reminiscent of the darkness of infinity and space. It also makes a special feature of this work visible: sliding his gaze up slightly, the viewer will see a small, discrete oval shape hiding on the uniform black surface.
Whilst Fontana cuts and tears his works to let space in, inviting the viewer to go beyond matter, Scheggi – both in the present in all his other works – demands that the viewer look inside the work itself in order to search for the immense possibilities of empty space.

From the Catalogue of a 1962 exhibition held at “Il Cancello” in Bologna (Italy):
(…) “I like your anxieties, your researches, your paintings, which are so deeply black, red, white and reveal your thoughts as well as your fears. I cannot but wish you a ‘happy’ career and remind you to be humble, very humble, for we are ‘nothing’ in time.”
Lucio Fontana
Milan, November 1962