enamel on emulsified canvas
115 x 160 cm
1973 -1974
NOTES: Signed on the back. The work is accompanied by certificate of authenticity on photograph issued by Archivio Mario Schifano, Rome, with n. 01091080705 of 15 July 2008.
EXHIBITIONS: Mario Schifano. Paesaggi pop, Castello di San Giorgio, Lerici, 10 June – 1 October 2006, exhibition cat. p. 79.
PUBLICATIONS: Mario Schifano. Paesaggi pop, Edizioni Colle 2006, p. 79.
PROVENANCE: Galleria Sangallo by M.Secci, Florence.
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.