The extraordinary and unique nature of the pictorial technique devised by Goldschmiedt can be linked with three circumstances that in some way contributed to his early artistic shaping.
The first was his awareness and knowledge of several frottage works by Yves Tanguy, produced – or rather, experimented – around 1925.
The second dates from the 1960s, when Goldschmiedt visited the pavilion at the Venice Biennale where the works of Corrado Cagli were displayed, and was impressed and intrigued by his “crumpled papers”. The third, and undoubtedly decisive, circumstance can be traced to 1971, when Goldschmiedt, acting as art director for a well-known Italian textile industry, was preparing an advertising campaign for linen. It was a Friday when a photographer – with whom he had actually worked for a long time, and always with very satisfactory results – brought him a series of shots of linen fabric that were completely unacceptable.
There was not time to retake the photographs, for the first advertisements were due to appear in all the national newspapers the following Tuesday. Goldschmiedt worked all Sunday, until late at night, manually and using the frottage technique on paper, followed by spray painting. He thus solved the problem, and indeed the results were so good that everyone was convinced that they were real photographs!
It was not until 1973 that Goldschmiedt – still a graphic artist and designer, albeit with the intention of abandoning this career – commenced his earliest pictorial experimentation in black and white. In these works his interest was concentrated essentially on the relationship between light and objects. While sensing the extraordinary opportunities that the exploration of this technique would offer him, he also realised that its path would be very long. Over 30 years later, this technique has witnessed exceptional development and is now universally recognised. The various stages of this creative process, for long Goldschmiedt’s jealously guarded secret, can be described in the Monography and in a unique video.