Luca Ronchi
Mario Schifano Una biografia

Luca Ronchi, in a work of colossal scope, gathers the testimonies of those who knew, lived, and tangled with the artist, the late Mario Schifano. He pours a river of fragments into the book, giving space to a multitude of people and characters, constructing a biography of extraordinary power.

Gallery owners, companions of feasts, models, fixers, the wife, lovers, friends and enemies, actress Eleonora Giorgi, and even the well-known critic Achille Bonito Oliva speak. Ronchi extracts the essence from the interviews and revives, through decisive passages, the genius of a master difficult to understand. What emerges is a delicate character, but devoid of empathy. A party-goer, but essential. A worker, but prone to vice. Static, yet in constant motion.

There was a lot of instinct in his way of living, perhaps too much, hence a rollercoaster of elegant madness. Interesting chapters on the counterfeits (24,000 works attributed to Schifano), those dedicated to friends from Piazza del Popolo (in Rome) such as Tano Festa and Franco Angeli. Astonishing encounters with Wahrol and Jagger. He was as much a Rockstar as they were.

Clarification is given on the arrests (for drugs) and substance dependency, but let it be clear, this is not a sterile narrative. There is a common thread, a historical track that provides good temporal orientation. Moreover, the testimonies clash with each other, there is an underlying quarrel, an exchange of opinions and visions that ultimately pushes the reader to interpret the essence of the character Schifano for themselves.

Halfway through, I had to abandon the reading due to a feeling of nausea (some passages are extremely raw, borderline splatter, (the substance abuse had reduced him to half-invalid) only to muster the courage to resume because it was there, calling me. I struggled to form a precise idea of the man, who was everything and nothing, this and the opposite. Elusive, like a cheetah, a critic will say of him. A book can only attempt to describe him, but he will still slip away from the pages.

Advisable, if you love biographies and if you want to experience a protagonist of an important historical snapshot, when Italian POP ART (and POP LIFE) was making history.