Enamel on emulsified canvas
inch. 31.59x 47.19 / cm 81×121
1973-78
NOTES: Signed on the back
Certificate of authenticity by Fondazione Mario Schifano Archivio Generale dell’opera di Mario Schifano, Rome
PROVENANCE: Private collection
EXHIBITIONS: 2019-2020, Milan, Mario Schifano. In Onda TV, Studio Guastalla Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, ill. in cat. p. 35
Discover the video of the artwork (right-click on the link and select “open link in another browser window”) https://youtube.com/shorts/PWhGm_Zy7oo?feature=share
Mario Schifano lived in Rome in the 1970s and had a very large studio overlooking the Tevere, but the view from outside was completely blocked because the windows were kept constantly closed. His real landscape, as he titled his works from those years, such as this one, Paesaggio TV (TV Landscape), was what was broadcast on the countless televisions kept on 24 hours a day. Schifano took photos at the moments he deemed most suitable, and these photos were then emulsified on black canvases on which we see the profile of the cathode ray tube that many of you will remember. The emulsified images were then painted with acrylic colors. In an Italy where there were still only two TV channels broadcasting at very limited times, Schifano had already understood that in the future we would live in an uninterrupted flow of images, and he understood that this flow would be our true landscape.