The Highlands Current: An Italian Visits New York

Magazzino exhibit shares 1960s work by talented, but troubled, artist

One takeaway from the exhibit Germinal at Magazzino Italian Art in Philipstown is how often the artist, Mario Schifano, shifted visual and technical gears over just 10 years, from 1960 to 1970.

In Italy, the groovy 1960s collided with lingering post-World War II malaise and radical politics. Schifano visited New York City three times during the period, hobnobbing with jazz masters and hanging out with Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg.

A cheeky account states that “the Rolling Stones stole his girlfriend,” Anita Pallenberg (who dated Brian Jones and had three children with Keith Richards). Later in the decade, Marianne Faithfull left Mick Jagger for Schifano.