(Homs/Libya 1934–1998 Rome)
Untitled (red monochrome with letter O), 1973, signed on the reverse Schifano, enamel on canvas, 120 x 70 cm, framed

Photo certificate:
Archivio Mario Schifano, no. 03120160416, Rome 27/4/2016

Provenance:
Private Collection, Italy

Maurizio Calvesi, from the catalogue of the Mario Schifano exhibition, Salone delle Scuderie in Pilotta, Parma, 1974

I am led to write more as a witness than once again as a critic when it comes to the painting of Mario Schifano: for example, the monochromes of 1960 and 1961 cannot be explained purely in terms of comparative philological criticism, taking Manzoni, or others yet more diverse, by way of comparison. These monochromes did not have the anaemia of an intellectual operation, but on the contrary the significance of a vital gesture, and above all, they were, and are, impossible to reduce to a programme, an intention, a calculation. They were not only a vital gesture but a natural one, uninhibited, as was the one who painted them, despite, or perhaps because of, the shock they aroused. This annulment, this nothing, is exposed, elegant, thriving, a nothing which contained a project of everything. They were born of a need to purify matter, of the informal, of representation, and are part of, and inseparable from, a love of painting, and of life.