Antonio Scaccabarozzi

The work of Antonio Scaccabarozzi (Merate 1936 – Santa Maria Hoè 2008), in line with the cultural context (not only Italian) of the last decades of the 20th century, was underpinned by constant and rigorous research into the meaning and potential of creating art, starting from an analysis of the components of visual expression, especially painting.

Through a study of space, line, colour, chiaroscuro, light, movement, and balance between the various elements making up a painting, Scaccabarozzi went as far as to free his work from excessively expressive forms, thus achieving absolute essentiality, without overlooking unexpected elements, breaches or errors that can arise in the work, incorporating them. From the late 1970s, Scaccabarozzi felt the need to relax the rules, to ‘go beyond’, reaching radical and poetic results with the use of an extra-pictorial material with industrial origins: polyethylene.

The book, edited by Gabi Scardi, is published to mark the exhibition “Antonio Scaccabarozzi. Creating the Rule: Going Beyond” (Museo del Novecento, Milan, 2022), dedicated to his activity between painting, drawing and installation art.