Intersuperficie nera

Executed in 1965, Intersuperficie nera belongs to an important series of works that Paolo Scheggi executed in the 1960s, attracting the attention and support of Lucio Fontana. In 1962, presenting the artist's second solo exhibition, Fontana wrote: 'I like your anxieties, your researches, your paintings, which are so deeply black, red, white () I cannot but wish you a happy career and to remind you to be humble' (L. Fontana, text with no title, in Paolo Scheggi. Intersuperfici curve a zone riflesse, exh. cat., Bologna, 1962). Although Scheggi's career came to a premature end with his death in 1971, works such as Intersuperficie nera are a testament to his significant contribution to 1960s art. Devising a specific technique in order to cut and fold canvases, Scheggi combined in his works multiple layers that orchestrate in their holes three-dimensional echoes of shapes and reliefs. In Intersuperficie nera, the abyss evoked by the black surface of the work is emphasised by the womb-like curves of the holes that suggest the presence of an undercover realm, extending and breathing beneath the canvas.
Together with Lucio Fontana, Agostino Bonalumi, Enrico Castellani, the Italian art critic Gillo Dorfles acknowledged Scheggi as an important exponent of the 'Pittura Oggetto', a movement the critic perceived as going beyond figurative and abstract conceptions, in order to embrace and expand the object-nature of paintings. The use of the monochrome in Intersuperficie nera, seems to confirm Dorfles's intuition: the black, uniform surface effaces not only all reference to figurative or abstract sources, but also all traces of the artist's hand, presenting the work as an independent, distinct object. By treating the surface of Intersuperficie nera as a sculptural entity, rather than as a surface on which to represent figures or shapes, moreover, Scheggi changed the experience of painting from a contemplative act to an almost tactile event, subverting the usual norms of the pictorial world.