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Lot Essay
‘At first I used to paint with a very few colours, because my work expressed the idea of the emblematic, of street signs, of perceptual phenomena, of primal things. I thought that painting meant starting from something absolutely primal... I would paint works like this: with blue, with red, with yellow, with green, these were signs of energy... with nothing in them, empty images... that went beyond any cultural intention. They wanted to be only themselves.’ – Mario Schifano
Monocromo blu (Blue Monochrome), 1960, is a luscious enamel surface from Mario Schifano’s Monochromi, the series which brought him international acclaim and drew the attention of influential art dealer Illeana Sonnabend. Sonnabend’s enthusiasm about the series was so fervent, that after Schifano abruptly shifted away from these works, she was so enraged that she broke of all relations with him. Schifano developed the Monochromi in reaction to his informel-inspired works of the late-1950s, for which he scratched incisions and marks into monochromatic layers in order to articulate painting’s materiality. Similar to these earlier canvases, the surfaces of the Monochromi, too, are highly tactile. In Monocromo blu, Schifano’s paint is loose and joyful, a carefree texture of drips and pours that forms a rectangular pool of liquid navy. Formally, the painting evokes Yves Klein’s famous International Klein Blue monochromes, which were first conceived in 1957. For both Klein and Schifano, colour was emotive, transformative presence; unlike Klein, however, Schifano did not so aggressively restrict his colour palette: ‘I would paint works like this: with blue, with red, with yellow, with green, these were signs of energy… with nothing in them, empty images… that went beyond any cultural intention. They wanted to be only themselves’ (M. Schifano interviewed by E. Siciliano, ‘Lui ama Nancy la fotografa’, Il Mondo, November 16, 1972). Schifano moved to New York in 1963 where he lived with Jasper Johns, inserting himself into the bourgeoning Pop art scene that would come to mark his subsequent works, manifested here in the cool, enamel blue. Anticipating much of the rhetoric that would develop in the late-1960s, Monocromo blu seems to be both painting and sculpture caught in the act of becoming and dissolving. Indeed, to stare at Monocromo blu is to be subsumed by the sumptuous blue.
Monocromo blu (Blue Monochrome), 1960, is a luscious enamel surface from Mario Schifano’s Monochromi, the series which brought him international acclaim and drew the attention of influential art dealer Illeana Sonnabend. Sonnabend’s enthusiasm about the series was so fervent, that after Schifano abruptly shifted away from these works, she was so enraged that she broke of all relations with him. Schifano developed the Monochromi in reaction to his informel-inspired works of the late-1950s, for which he scratched incisions and marks into monochromatic layers in order to articulate painting’s materiality. Similar to these earlier canvases, the surfaces of the Monochromi, too, are highly tactile. In Monocromo blu, Schifano’s paint is loose and joyful, a carefree texture of drips and pours that forms a rectangular pool of liquid navy. Formally, the painting evokes Yves Klein’s famous International Klein Blue monochromes, which were first conceived in 1957. For both Klein and Schifano, colour was emotive, transformative presence; unlike Klein, however, Schifano did not so aggressively restrict his colour palette: ‘I would paint works like this: with blue, with red, with yellow, with green, these were signs of energy… with nothing in them, empty images… that went beyond any cultural intention. They wanted to be only themselves’ (M. Schifano interviewed by E. Siciliano, ‘Lui ama Nancy la fotografa’, Il Mondo, November 16, 1972). Schifano moved to New York in 1963 where he lived with Jasper Johns, inserting himself into the bourgeoning Pop art scene that would come to mark his subsequent works, manifested here in the cool, enamel blue. Anticipating much of the rhetoric that would develop in the late-1960s, Monocromo blu seems to be both painting and sculpture caught in the act of becoming and dissolving. Indeed, to stare at Monocromo blu is to be subsumed by the sumptuous blue.