The project dedicated to Mario Schifano (Homs, Libya 1934-Rome 1998), one of the most significant and popular figures in recent Italian art, is the new chapter of that program started by Palazzo Esposizioni for the study and enhancement of the figures and movements that have marked the visual culture of the second half of the 20th century, particularly those emerged in the fertile context of the city of Rome.

"The tender and highly sensitive core of his soul is the passion for painting," this is how the critic and poet Cesare Vivaldi described the young Schifano in 1963. It is to this essential, indisputable, and widely shared esteem that, before any other purpose, the exhibition aims to give resonance with a collection of over a hundred works, among the most acclaimed and representative, coming from Italian and foreign public and private collections.

The exhibition will unfold in the rotunda and the seven large ground floor rooms of Palazzo Esposizioni, where, after the usual biographical introduction accompanied by original photographs and documents, the works will be articulated in chronological order starting from the early works to those of the 1990s. The exhibition will present Schifano's artistic biography through his main visual inventions: from works focused on material experimentation to monochromes, from new iconographies mediated by photographic language and themes of art history to TV landscapes and moving images, from works resulting from the fusion of photography and painting to the most recent paintings of explicit social commitment.

It is known that Mario Schifano had a preference for creating related works in the same period, therefore, works belonging to the same series will be displayed together in the exhibition, and the significant novelties that punctuate his work will be documented as they first appeared.

Along the exhibition path, there will be an exuberant and continuous regeneration of painting through the use of very different techniques, materials, and processes, among which cinema will play a significant role. A program of screenings in the Cinema Hall of Palazzo Esposizioni will be dedicated to Schifano's cinema, allowing visitors free and repeated access throughout the exhibition.

© MARIO SCHIFANO, by SIAE © Archivio Mario Schifano