La finzione dell'esordio: Sandro Chia alla galleria La Salita, Roma 1971

Between the 1960s and the 1970s many Italian young artists attributed to their debut the value of a manifesto. This aspect soon appeared in those pioneers, such as Giulio Paolini or Vettor Pisani, who carried out a metalinguistic kind of art. Starting from those examples, this article studies Sandro Chia’s false debut at the La Salita Gallery in Rome, between April and May 1971. Entitled L’ombra e il suo doppio (The Shadow and its Double), the show alluded to the well known Pliny the Elder’s tale about the origins of Painting and it was, misleadingly, recognized as his first solo show by Chia. Reconstructing the real career of the artist by a philological approach to the documents, this article adresses the poietic and poetic value attributed by Chia to his own debut.