(Homs/Libya 1934–1998 Rome)
“Segno d’energia”, 1965, titled, signed, dated on the reverse Schifano 65, enamel paint on canvas, 38 x 46 cm, strip frame

Photo Certificate:
Archivio Mario Schifano, Rome, no. 02727140808

Provenance:
Studio Marconi, Milan (with photo certificate)
Acquired there in 1967
Private Collection, Italy

Literature:
Bolaffi, Catalogo dell’Arte Moderna Italiana, no. 17, G. Mondadori & ass., Milan, 1981, p. 405, ill.

...Whilst in American Pop Art the use of consumer products as objects of artistic expression often occurs tout court, without the filter of irony or memory, and in a manner that is absolutely and deliberately pragmatic, the attitude of European Neo-Dada and Nouveau Réalisme towards mass media is fundamentally different, since it is loaded with critical, yet never debunking intentions. Schifano’s work in those years situates itself between the aforementioned European reaction, as it were, to the emerging mass culture, and a more autonomous, individual position. The signs, details and exteriors in which fragments of common advertising slogans can be easily identified – the “ESSO” oval sign, the Art Nouveau whirls of “COCA COLA” – are neither Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans, nor Kounellis’s signs and numbers, because Schifano destroys the integrity of the object without, however, transforming it in a mere sign that is wholly detached from its meaning. The protagonist is always the image that is filtered through the often benevolent eye of memory. Thus, “Esso” and “Coca Cola” become fragments of a landscape that is both reality and memory at once: they represent the emerging of an image – never an object – that comes from the artist’s pre-conscious as well as from every man’s daily life.
MARCO MENEGUZZO, 1982