Pier Paolo Pasolini: Subversive Prophet

Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italian, 1922–1975) is widely known in Europe for his prolific work as a poet, writer, and film director. A true humanist, his interests encompassed literature, art, history, classic tragedy, psychoanalysis, and politics. For Susan Sontag, Pasolini was “indisputably the most remarkable figure to have emerged in Italian arts and letters since the Second World War. Whatever he did once he did it, had the quality of seeming necessary.” Outspoken and subversive, Pasolini made no concessions and at times deliberately provoked his contemporaries, through his challenging political articles and his provocative films.  Violently murdered in 1975 under enigmatic circumstances that shocked Italy and intellectual circles worldwide, Pasolini left three decades of artistic production full of complex and rich themes that are as relevant today as they were then: the dangers of capitalism; growing inequality between poor and rich; hypocrisy and corruption in the social and political spheres. Pasolini had a prophetic vision of where the Western world was heading and he warned Italians of the universal homogenization of society due in part to the arrival of television, which imposed a new way of life dominated by frenetic consumption.

The exhibition opens with artistic homages to Pasolini by two Latin American artists: the Chilean, New York–based artist Alfredo Jaar, and the late Uruguayan artist Antonio Frasconi (a former Purchase College professor). Both artists pay tribute to Pasolini’s outstanding work and denounce his assassination. This first section also explores the reception of Pasolini in the Americas: in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and the United States—including his first visit to New York, in 1966. A second and larger gallery is devoted to the powerful creativity of Pasolini, featuring his poetry, novels, paintings, and drawings as well as an introduction to his most important films. The exhibition also showcases original film costumes designed in Rome by Farani, including the one used by Pasolini in The Canterbury Tales, in which he plays the role of Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of the original book by the same title.