Pasolini Roma

Alter its success in Barcelona, Paris and Rome the next stop of the travelling exhibition Pasolini Roma is the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin.

Born in Bologna in 1922, the prolific filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini was also a poet, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright, columnist, occasional actor, intimist painter and committed citizen. He showed exceptional artistic versatility and, until his murder in Ostia in 1975, he was one of the most controversial figures in Italian post-war society.

The exhibition follows a chronological order, following the evident drama of Pasolini’s life starting in 1950, when he arrived at the railway station in Rome. Exploring places in the city of Rome  and its environs, and through friendships with poets and intellectuals like Sandro Penna, Attilio Bertolucci, Elsa Morante and Alberto Moravia, the exhibit sets out to reveal the importance of geography in Pasolini’s personal relation with his times and with the world.

Comprising numerous photographs, registries, documents and audiovisual clips, the exhibition also offers unknown paintings and drawings by Pasolini, along with works by Italian artists related with his work and his vision of Rome. It takes a look at Pasolini through his relation with Rome, and everything that constituted and defined it: friendship, literature, politics, love, sex and cinema.

The underlying principle of this exhibition accompanies Pasolini throughout a many-faceted life in permanent tension: that of a man creating and fighting on all fronts.