SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen is dedicating the first museum exhibition in Germany and the first European retrospective outside Italy in over thirty years to Mario Schifano (1934–1998), one of the most important Italian artists of the second half of the twentieth century. The exhibition explores the entirety of his artistic universe, from his beginnings in the early 1960s to his final creative phase in the 1990s. More than 100 works in various media will be on view, including painting, collage, drawing, film, and photography.
Schifano’s work contains numerous biographical and historical references: the Vietnam War, encounters with rock stars of the “wild 1960s,” and famous figures of the New York art scene such as Andy Warhol, Frank Kline, and Frank O’Hara. But Schifano’s oeuvre revolves not only around personal experiences and memories. It is also a story of success and failure, passion and inner turmoil, strengths and weaknesses, and an examination of art and artistic existence.
Schifano’s almost inexhaustible range of materials and techniques, with which he experimented throughout his life, is extraordinary and will be highlighted in the retrospective. A particular focus of the exhibition is on the theme of the media world, with its then-new technical achievements such as television, which fascinated Schifano throughout his life.
The retrospective is being organized in close collaboration with the Archivio Mario Schifano (Rome) and the Fondazione Marconi (Milan). Important and previously unseen loans from international private collections and museums will be brought together with works from the Schaufler Collection.
Schifano’s almost inexhaustible range of materials and techniques, with which he experimented throughout his life, is extraordinary and will be highlighted in the retrospective. A particular focus of the exhibition is on the theme of the media world, with its then-new technical achievements such as television, which fascinated Schifano throughout his life.
The retrospective is being organized in close collaboration with the Archivio Mario Schifano (Rome) and the Fondazione Marconi (Milan). Important and previously unseen loans from international private collections and museums will be brought together with works from the Schaufler Collection.
