FONDAZIONE PASCALI
AVAILABLE LIGHT / LUCE DISPONIBILE
Peter Schuyff at the Fondazione Pino Pascali
The Fondazione Pino Pascali in Polignano a Mare presents Available Light / Luce Disponibile, Peter Schuyff’s first solo exhibition in an Italian institution, curated by Michele Spinelli. The exhibition opens on May 30 at 7 pm (until September 28, 2025), with the partnership of BPPB – Banca Popolare di Puglia e Basilicata. The title, which suggests a reference to natural light in photography, reflects on Schuyff’s creative process—an art that draws from light as pictorial matter, as a context for production, space, and time, balancing method and instinct.
Born in the Netherlands in 1958 and raised in Canada, Peter Schuyff emerged in the 1980s in New York within the East Village Art Scene, a radical artistic environment where he stood out alongside figures such as Philip Taaffe, George Condo, and Donald Baechler. He later engaged with the Neo-Geo group, which critically reinterpreted minimalism and conceptual art with sharp irony. During this period, Schuyff worked at Studio 54, lived in the iconic Chelsea Hotel, and posed for Andy Warhol, who involved him in The Factory and introduced him to the circle of artists linked to Pop Art. He was part of the same underground scene as Keith Haring, Grace Jones, and Nan Goldin, sharing in the artistic energy of the time. Closely connected to abstract painting and Optical Art, his work is distinguished by a hypnotic, psychedelic use of geometry and color, creating visual vibrations and perceptual effects that challenge the static nature of the canvas.
The exhibition at the Fondazione Pino Pascali features around fifty works, many of which are medium- and large-scale acrylic and oil paintings on canvas, while others, in a more intimate format, are exquisite watercolors on paper. The works come directly from the artist’s personal studio collection, while many others are sourced from public and private collections, including some located in Puglia—further evidence of his connection to the regional art system, thanks in part to important collaborations with Southern Italian galleries such as those of Marilena Bonomo and Lucio Amelio. Rather than a retrospective, the exhibition is conceived as a thoughtful curatorial selection that brings together different pictorial cycles and key moments in Schuyff’s artistic evolution: iconic 1980s works, characterized by labyrinthine patterns and optical illusions, alongside a strong focus on his more recent pieces (2020-2025), created between his long-standing Amsterdam studio and his new home/studio in Bari.
His decision to settle in Puglia marks a significant moment in his career, highlighting a new phase of exploration in which the relationship with light and space becomes even more essential.
Through Available Light / Luce Disponibile, the exhibition offers a visual journey between structure and fluidity, order and randomness, reaffirming the value of a painting practice that continuously questions perception, engagement, and the surrounding space. It is a light that illuminates without discrimination, in an existentialist echo that resonates with L’Étranger by Camus. Peter Schuyff’s exhibition delves into this realm of inevitability and ambiguity: light exists. His works thus emerge as open fields of perception, where geometric order and repetition do not impose a singular truth but rather suggest ever-changing, individual interpretations.
During the same time period as the exhibition at the Foundation, it will be possible to visit the EXCHIESETTA in the historic center of Polignano a Mare. Used as a time capsule, the project space-always visible from the outside and connected with the city-will host Peter Shuyff – Painted Boxes, works created exclusively in Schuyff’s seaside home studio in Bari during the challenging second COVID-19 lockdown. At that time, all materials had been used up, and the artist had no choice but to paint, in a twisted exercise of painting practice, the boxes that had previously contained his working materials. The result is dozens of polychrome towers that tenderly surrounded him during days that flowed by in an endlessly repetitive way.
With Available Light/Luce Disponibile, the cycle of thematic exhibitions focusing on a group of artists who have chosen Apulia-its land, light, and the “reflection” in the sea as a place of work and research-continues, following the 2024 exhibition “About Her” by Marco Neri, curated by Giuseppe Teofilo.
Peter Schuyff 1958 (Baarn, NL) is a painter, sculptor and musician. He was a prominent member of the Neo – Geo movement during the 80s in New York, showing with Pat Hearn Gallery (1983),Gagosian Gallery (1985) & Leo Castelli Gallery (1987). In 2017 Le Consortium, Dijon, presented ‘Has Been’ a retrospective of Schuyff’s work made between 1981-89. His more recent public exhibitions include Whitney Biennial, New York (2014); New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2005); and The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, US (1996). Schuyff’s work can be found in the permanent collections of MOMA, New York: MOCA, LA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and The Fisher Landau Foundation, New York. Schuyff lives and works in both Amsterdam, NL and Bari, IT.
With the support of:
Peter Schuyff. Available light / Luce disponibile
Curated by Michele Spinelli
Exhibition opening: May 30, 7 pm
Until September 28
Hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 10 am to 1pm and from 4 pm to 8pm
Ticket: 8 euros, except for those entitled to reductions
Fondazione Pino Pascali
Via Parco del Lauro, 119 Polignano a Mare
www.fondazionepascali.it
info@fondazionepascali.it
tel: +39 080 424 9534
Press Office: press@fondazionepascali.it