OPLÁ. Action-lecture-theatre by Paolo Scheggi: Saturday 26 September

On Saturday 26 September, on the occasion of the Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato in Florence, the Mus Association. and in collaboration with Associazione Paolo Scheggi, Milano, and Museo Novecento, Florence, with the support of Tornabuoni Arte (Florence, Paris, London), offers the city a very special event: OPLÁ. An urban action conceived and created by Paolo Scheggi back in 1969, proposed today as then in the streets of the historic center of Florence. Four large white letters, forming the word OPLA, carried in the streets and squares of the historic center with the involvement of the public citizen, in that historical period constituted a fundamental moment of rethinking of the role of the work, from finished object to ephemeral moment, energetic, in motion. After forty-six years, the public is invited to take part again in this extraordinary performative event, involving the city in an exciting and unique experience of its kind: a demonstration not only of its freshness and topicality, but also of the incessant discovery and the vivacity of language of one of the artists who contributed deeply to trace a new aesthetic and ethical direction of contemporary art.

As then, in fact, young people and citizens are called to participate in the event: the departure will take place at 17 in Piazza Santa Maria Novella, in front of the Museo Novecento; the itinerary will wind through Via della Spada, piazza Repubblica, Loggia del Porcellino and the Lungarni and then finish around 19 in front of Palazzo Corsini, home of the Biennale dell’Antiquariato. To be part of the event it is mandatory to book at 055-2768224 055-2768558 or at the email info@muse.comune.fi.it (max 100 people). All participants will be offered a free admission to the Biennale Internazionale dell’Antiquariato, open until October 4. The letters of OPLÀ will be present from September 25 right in front of the Museo Novecento: an invitation to look and think in an artistic way the reality of every day.  To prepare the city for the event there are guided tours to the Museo Novecento, which start from OPLÀ.

Paolo Scheggi: Artist with an interdisciplinary research, eclectic and at the same time coherent in his changing definition, Paolo Scheggi is one of the protagonists of the international post-World War II scene, active agitator of reflections and debates on the role of contemporary art. Parallel to the pictorial investigation conducted since the late 1950s and fully established over the following decade, the word, the language, the alphabets become a determining place of his artistic reflection: from the Novel of visual poetry, written by Scheggi between 1962 and 1965 as a free and careful composition of typographical characters aimed at distorting the space of the literary page, the experiences in the theater conducted with Giuliano Scabia at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan at the end of 1968, Paolo Scheggi bravely tackles the urban environment, understanding the city as a collective and engaging “show time” and inviting the public to “live as a show”: this is how the Oplà-stick actions demonstrated during 1969. Passion according to Paolo Scheggi conducted in Milan at the Galleria del Naviglio and in Zagreb, on the occasion of the international event New trends 4, followed by the Autospettacolo in Caorle and the metaphysical procession of geometric solids and reciting voices made by Scheggi with music by Franca Sacchi for Campo urbano in Como, still in September 1969. These were the years of the cultural revolution, of the recovery of the historical avant-gardes, of the manifestos and proclamations, of the necessary rediscovery of utopia as the ultimate and salvific means of a possible transformation of the world. The last two years of activity, 1970-1971 see Paolo Scheggi engaged in a conceptual research that ends with the 6profetiper6geometries, still to be investigated in their complexity. Present at the Venice Biennale in 1966, 1972, 1976, 1986, Scheggi exhibited in the main artistic events of the time, from Paris to Buenos Aires, from New York to Hamburg, from Düsseldorf to Zagreb. In 2013 the Paolo Scheggi Association was founded with the aim of protecting, promoting and deepening the artist’s research, through exhibitions and scientific publications, including the Catalogue raisonné of the work of Paolo Scheggi, edited by Luca Massimo Barbero, upcoming.