Mario Schifano
Coca Cola

Together with the subject IT, that of COCACOLA is among the most frequently depicted by the artist. These commercial subjects, well-known and thus immediately recognizable, have contributed to attributing the label of Italian pop art to the artist.

The artwork (the artworks) is typically executed on paper or cardboard, (which already adds to its charm) and almost all of them date back to the 1960s. Those that are authenticated today hold significant commercial value and are part of important private collections.

The simplicity of the work is instead of great visual effectiveness because capturing such common subjects allows everyone to engage directly with the artwork without forming opinions or a sense of detachment.

The strength of Schifano lies in choosing a fragment of the absolute form of the subject, which, due to its fame, does not need to be presented in its entirety.

The early works on the theme echoed the fragment of the name and the color, also immediately recognizable.

Schifano's strength, already starting from the 1960s, consisted precisely in appropriating these symbols. In them, one finds not a blatant copy, but a pictorial interpretation made in a simple and immediate style, full of drips, with an uncertain stroke because the eye bears much responsibility and doesn't need perfection to avoid feeling lost.

Moreover, it is the small smudges that make the painting unique. If it's true that from a distance the impact is immediate, in a careful analysis, one can trace the artist's perceptions, a rapid executor indifferent to precision, but attentive to strong symbolism, diffusion, subject repetition, propagating through content the non-form.

These are enlightening paintings that lead us to understand how bombarded we are by everyday symbols, how much recognition matters to us for orientation, how an ordinary subject, now visually perceived in a total way, can be effectively reworked.

In this case too, these are repeated and repeatable works, difficult to trace in their original forms as they were produced in large numbers, for obvious gallery needs. And to think that Schifano used to give these paintings away...