Featuring key works from his short but prolific artistic career, Ronchini Gallery presents Paolo Scheggi’s (1940-1971) first solo exhibition in London for over 40 years from 11 December until 8 February. Crossing mediums, ideas and movements, this latest show offers a rare opportunity to explore and admire some of the artist’s most iconic pieces.

Renowned for his overlapping monochrome canvases, which he referred to as “Intersuperfici” or “Zone Riflesse” (curved intersurfaces and reflected areas), his works have become notable for pioneering the idea of “painting as object”. Always sitting between sculpture and painting, Scheggi’s three-dimensional works take on a real physicality, embodying the “thingness” of the canvas with deeply shadowed layers and concave textures in a way that is both conceptual and captivating to look at.

Concerned with the existential and transcendental, Scheggi’s name is often discussed in relation to the Zero Movement and compared to artists such as Piero Manzoni in his explorations of the space-time continuum. Generally seen as a successor to Lucio Fontana’s specialist observations – demanding the viewer to look beyond the canvas – Scheggi’s work seeks to take this further as he implores the viewer to look within and peer into the void. This novel approach is a style contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor have since used as inspiration for their own work.

Geometric, rhythmic and shot through with precision, this exhibition also presents pieces from artists similar to or with connections to the style of Scheggi, including Agostino Bonalumi and Enrico Castellani alongside a catalogue with featured essays from the likes of Gillo Dorfles and Germano Celant.

Paolo Scheggi: Selected Works from European Collections, 11 December- 8 February, Ronchini Gallery, 22 Dering Street, London, W1S 1AN.

Credits
1. Paolo Scheggi, Uomo, Vogue, 1967, Photo, Ugo, Mulas © Ugo Mulas Heirs. All-rights-reserved.