(Homs/Libya 1934–1998 Rome)
Tutte stelle, 1967, signed on the reverse: Tutte stelle Mario Schifano 67, enamel on canvas, under embossed plexiglass, 131 x 101 cm, (MCC)

Photo certificate:
Fondazione Mario Schifano, Rome, 30 June 1999, archive no. 67/2

Provenance:
C. ssa Giuliana, Donà delle Rose/Romani Adami, Rome
Farsetti, Prato, Auction 29/5/1999, cat. no. 241
Private Collection, Italy

Literature:
Multistudio Università di Genova, Mario Schifano – Opere su tela 1956–1982, 2007, vol. I., p. 99, no. 67/2 with ill.

At the same time as his cinematographic experience, or just before it, Schifano also devoted himself to other practices outside the sphere of painting, such as the performances of the pop group “Le Stelle di Mario Schifano“ [Mario Schifano’s Stars] at the Piper Clubs in Italy […], a playful, ironic, entertaining, consistent, perhaps “easy“ way to eschew the ever-powerful charm of painting.
In his analysis of the cinematographic adventures of authors coming from other fields, Alberto Moravia thus wrote in L’Espresso (14 January 1968):
“With its vaguely Art Nouveau title, ‘I sogni e le stelle’ [Dreams and stars], Schifano’s performance is a good example of what I am attempting to show [...], while the music played by the group ‘Le stelle’ [The stars] was propagated through the vast, extremely crowded room, with imposing stroboscopic effects of intensification and amplification reinforced by blinding lights, a film by Schifano was projected on the wall in the background – wholly disregarding the recesses and bulges in the wall – based on the subject of the decomposition, iteration and multiplication of one and the same figure, and including scenes from the Vietnam War, excerpts from old westerns, sequences from documentary films and other materials...“

A star-themed cycle constitutes the subject of Mario Schifano’s personal exhibition at the Studio Marconi in Milan (“Tuttestelle“, 1967). The sprayed outlines are reminiscent of images created on the walls with stencils at night, the starry skies are the same skies as in his previous works titled “Oasi“, which, in turn, derived their stars by way of “associazione e proiezione dei ricordi“ from chocolate boxes.