Peter Schuyff 1987 / 2022
'Square - Eyed' When I was young, sitting inches away from the television screen was a reliable way to make something happen for my eyes. My paintings, my work generally, has always come from similarly reliable recipes. I get up real close and sit very still until something happens". Peter Schuyff, 2022
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique is pleased to collaborate with Peter Schuyff for his first exhibition with the gallery.
This presentation features two works from 1987 and two from 2022, exactly 35 years after Schuyff’s first exhibition with Lucio Amelio, in his Neapolitan gallery, and before the opening of Pièce Unique in Paris in 1989. Schuyff’s career began in New York City in the 1980’s: as a resident of the iconic Chelsea Hotel, he is regarded as a key member of the Neo-Geo movement, which addressed the mechanization and commodification of the modern world with as much gravity as humor.
Sol Lewitt, Piet Mondrian and Agnes Martin’s abstract minimalisms have had a profound impact on Schuyff’s approach to making art, prompting him to limit his role as a subjective painter as much as possible, to create works that are exactly what they are: color, patterns, repeated mechanically according to one initial guiding principle.
Schuyff’s geometric abstraction seeks to be as “anti-conceptual” as possible. A little bit like his ritualistic sitting too close to the TV screen – he allows these mind-bending, geometric patterns to appear in his vision, to then reproduce them on large-scale canvases. By limiting his responsibility as artist, he reaches a new balance between constraint and freedom.
Artista
Peter Schuyff (nato nel 1958 a Baarn, Paesi Bassi) è un membro di spicco del movimento Neo-Geo emerso a New York negli anni Ottanta.
Nato nei Paesi Bassi, si è poi trasferito negli Stati Uniti, dove si è fatto conoscere per il suo approccio unico alla pittura. Il suo lavoro è caratterizzato dall'uso di forme geometriche e dalla capacità di creare luce e movimento applicando sottili strati di pittura acrilica. Tra gli artisti più innovativi della sua generazione, Schyuff continua a spingersi oltre i confini dell'arte astratta, esplorando nuove tecniche e concetti.
Nel 2017 Le Consortium, Dijon, ha presentato "Has Been", una retrospettiva delle opere di Schuyff realizzate tra il 1981 e il 1989. Le sue mostre pubbliche più recenti includono la Biennale del Whitney, New York (2014); il New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2005) e l'Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, USA (1996). Le opere di Schuyff si trovano nelle collezioni permanenti del MOMA di New York: MOCA, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York e The Fisher Landau Foundation, New York. Schuyff vive e lavora ad Amsterdam (NL) e a Bari (IT).