Pier Paolo Pasolini
17 Nov 2005 - 05 Feb 2006
P.P.P. - Pier Paolo Pasolini and Death
Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) - or, as he preferred to call himself, »P.P.P.« - was not only a film director and author but also dramatist and actor, lyricist and journalist, painter and graphic artist. As a poet, as the author of novels and of theoretical essays, and as director of controversial films, Pasolini chose to focus largely on timeless, archaic subjects: the fate of humanity, religion, sexuality, death. In doing so, he moved in his own aesthetic world of contradiction, one far beyond conventional norms and values, where he created images of clarity only rarely achieved since - images in which harshness and tenderness appear intimately interrelated in sibling-like form.
Throughout his work Pasolini directed his attention towards an all-embracing dimension - a superior ideal. The lucidity of thought and the immense influence of his works on subsequent generations of performance and fine artists are better judged now, three decades after his death.
Pasolini was one of the first to predict the crisis of humanity created by the culturally destructive role of the media and by mass consumption at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.
To this day, the name of Pasolini is for many people primarily associated with external events, with the breaking of taboos and with scandals. For this reason, the exhibition is particularly interested in presenting the many different facets and contexts of the work by this highly versatile artist. Drawings and paintings, manuscripts and documents as well as a number of »symbolic« images from his films, have been assembled to illuminate the broad intellectual spectrum of Pasolini's leading thoughts and works. At the same time, the exhibition traces the chronological development of a work that reached its ultimate coherence through the death of the poet-director: »As long as I am not dead, no one will be able to claim they really know me.« (P.P.P.)
Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) - or, as he preferred to call himself, »P.P.P.« - was not only a film director and author but also dramatist and actor, lyricist and journalist, painter and graphic artist. As a poet, as the author of novels and of theoretical essays, and as director of controversial films, Pasolini chose to focus largely on timeless, archaic subjects: the fate of humanity, religion, sexuality, death. In doing so, he moved in his own aesthetic world of contradiction, one far beyond conventional norms and values, where he created images of clarity only rarely achieved since - images in which harshness and tenderness appear intimately interrelated in sibling-like form.
Throughout his work Pasolini directed his attention towards an all-embracing dimension - a superior ideal. The lucidity of thought and the immense influence of his works on subsequent generations of performance and fine artists are better judged now, three decades after his death.
Pasolini was one of the first to predict the crisis of humanity created by the culturally destructive role of the media and by mass consumption at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century.
To this day, the name of Pasolini is for many people primarily associated with external events, with the breaking of taboos and with scandals. For this reason, the exhibition is particularly interested in presenting the many different facets and contexts of the work by this highly versatile artist. Drawings and paintings, manuscripts and documents as well as a number of »symbolic« images from his films, have been assembled to illuminate the broad intellectual spectrum of Pasolini's leading thoughts and works. At the same time, the exhibition traces the chronological development of a work that reached its ultimate coherence through the death of the poet-director: »As long as I am not dead, no one will be able to claim they really know me.« (P.P.P.)