Original subtitles

IN THE SUMMER OF 2018

THE PINO PASCALI MUSEUM BOUGHT PASCALI'S "BRISTLE WORMS"

FROM LEGENDARY ART DEALER FABIO SARGENTINI.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS DOCUMENTING THIS ACQUISITION WERE TAKEN BY PINO MUSI.

ALL OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE FILM WERE TAKEN BY PASCALI IN 1963-68.

This is the story of a man marked by an image of his childhood.

The scene that troubled him

the meaning of which he was to grasp only years later

occurred in a cave by the sea in a distant faraway time.

It has been found again.

What?

Eternity.

It is the sea gone with the sun.

This is a warehouse on the outskirts of town.

Summer has just begun.

Foreword - in March 1968 at "L'Attico" art gallery

which at the time was located in Piazza di Spagna in Roma,

an installation by the artist Pino Pascali was on display.

This art installation, which essentially embodied Pascali's artistic inventiveness,

consisted of an exhibition of five sets of common objects -

"Five Bristle Worms and a Cocoon".

This is a warehouse on the outskirts of town...

and this is a gallery.

What happened?

What happened to me?

What am I doing here?

Pino Pascali was born in Bari

a town by the sea in Southern Italy.

He spent every summer in Polignano

a nearby village overlooking the Mediterranean

where both his parents were born and owned a house.

I was born by the sea.

The Mediterranean.

The light...

white, blinding.

The sun...

warm.

The land...

perfumed.

The sunlight, the wind, the rocks, the sea water...

its constantly moving surface.

What lies beyond the sea?

As a child, Pino displayed a lively personality

and an irresistible creative streak.

Every ordinary object in his hands became a new toy.

His restlessness, coupled with a poor performance at school,

with the exception of art,

took him away from home.

..and finally leave!

En voyage! To Napoli, to complete the studies.

How long do we have?

How much time left?

Where are we?

I don't know...

I don't recognize this place but it looks familiar.

Wait.

I know where we are...

this is the future!

Jasper Johns, Jim Dine

Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol...

Venezia, June 1964.

Robert Rauschenberg wins the 32nd Art Biennale.

Remembered as the “Biennale of the Americans”

the show raises bewilderment, excitement and scandal

among the audience, critics, artists.

The doors are open for the Pop Art invasion.

Annoyed by the excessive reactions to what is shown at the Biennale,

Pino will find himself able to reinvent Pop Art themes in a personal style.

In four short years in the heart of the Sixties

his works will invade the art spaces and galleries.

One exhibition after the other

almost one against the other

in a restless, creative rush.

I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

I alone hold the key to this savage parade.

Bright landscapes, forgotten scents.

The recollections of a childhood afternoon resurface.

Children's games

reveries of distant worlds.

Metamorphosis!

A new kingdom.

An artificial kingdom, made of plastic,

of new materials,

of industrial waste!

Narcotic communication,

psychological seduction of advertising and the commercial cinema,

of banal dramaturgy and its catharsis,

of decadent melodies played in HI-FI.

1955

Pino is 20 years old when he moves to Roma

to attend the Academy of Fine Arts.

Bitumen

Sand

Sponges

Alcohol

Oil

Varnish

Gasoline

Solvents

Acids

Marble dust

and cigarette ash.

The matter...

the matter is important.

Mario Schifano, Tano Festa,

Cesare Tacchi, Franco Angeli,

Francesco Lo Savio, Sergio Lombardo,

Renato Mambor, Giosetta Fioroni, Jannis Kounellis...

Pino Pascali.

In high school I used to spend all my time drawing airplanes,

submarines, miniature battleships.

I would draft them at school then build them at home.

So rather than continue my scientific studies

my urgent need for freedom led me to pursue art.

He attends his classes with enthusiasm,

in particular those of Toti Scialoja

a painter and a poet, whose iconoclastic spirit

imbues his students with the passion for the creative possibilities

of unusual materials.

The artists' studios transformed in garages

the traditional painters' and sculptors' instruments

substituted with screwdrivers, wrenches and blowtorches.

Revulsion against imposed patterns.

Urge to respond to the oversaturation of signals,

symbols and icons of the electric age.

Pino himself pays close attention

to the graphic nature of advertising signs and urban communication.

Still attending the art school, as a natural transition

he will join the world of commercial advertising.

Copywriter

Graphic artist

Set designer

Photographer

even actor

lively and humorous

an unstoppable creative energy.

Perhaps it is on these level that moons and comets meet,

fables and seas.

The art installation,

consisting of acrylic brushes on metal supports,

is composed as follows -

1. Red-Green Silkworm, 196cm (22+2 brushes)

2. Blue Silkworm, 462cm (39+2 brushes)

3. Blue-Red Silkworm, 390cm (42+2 brushes)

4. Green Silkworm, 364cm (39+2 brushes)

5. Green-Red Silkworm, 389cm (42+2 brushes)

The dealer is committed to selling Pascali's artwork to the buyer,

who in turn is engaged in the relative purchase.

(and a nylon webbed cocoon of about cm 390)

The parties would then proceed to a joint consultation

in the presence of a duly appointed commission of experts -

one member representing the Foundation

one member on behalf of Mr. Sargentini

and one impartial expert.

Pino loves jazz.

He drives around the city in a battered car

hungrily looking, searching, gathering.

Shares small apartments and cramped studios with his friends

fills these places with the discarded objects he's collected.

He often goes dancing at the Piper,

the most famous dance hall in Sixties Roma.

Dances weirdly, energetically.

He asks for advice on new books which he reads voraciously.

Loves the cinema,

haunts the faded movie palaces of the metropolis.

Gets mad if the hero dies at the end of the film.

Galvanized by life

finds himself daydreaming in front of the cages in the zoo,

the windows of toy stores,

the vividly coloured products stacked in the supermarkets.

He often drives towards the sea

fast.

Repeatedly falls off his motorcycle onto the hard concrete

but never stops speeding.

I go to the sea as soon as I can.

There is no other place where I feel so full.

In 1964 Pino destroys most of his artwork

dismissing it as a transitional phase.

Only a few pictures from this time remain.

An exhibition is still out of the question.

Informality.

Disorder.

Uncertainty.

Unexpected dialectics between the artwork and its interpreter.

The selling party grants the Foundation

all rights of economic use of the art installation

with no exceptions -

the right of public display and public consultation of the artwork...

But on January 11th, 1965,

Pino's first solo exhibition opens at "La Tartaruga" in Roma.

"Muro di pietra"

"Colosseo"

"Ruderi sul Prato"

"Biancavvela"

I will never forget the searing impression I received

I saw Pino's first exhibition at "La Tartaruga".

With those huge lips, those breasts,

with the "Wall of Slumber" made of pillows,

Pascali entered, with authority and confidence,

the most disputed and controversial territory -

the world of Pop Art.

And, with this same confidence, he would then exit.

The originality of those anatomical shapes

the sense of humor inherent in the 'pillow wall'

would far exceed the borders of Pop Art thus heading towards a finite,

precisely measured shape.

Extreme terseness of execution,

removal of any Informal remnant...

The exhibition is successful.

Instantly Pascali's poetics make themselves clear.

Pino shreds his remaining residues of provincialism

changing both phisycally and in his ways.

Once made, a thing is finished.

Art is a system for change.

Immanent?

What is immanent?

(matter conceived in its immanent biology)

I don't remember precisely when I met him.

He was part of the group of young avant-garde artists from the 1960s in Rome

and I happened to come across him through Jannis Kounellis.

I visited him several times in his studio

a ground floor apartment in Via Boccea.

One day he took me into the courtyard

and showed me a warehouse of weapons.

War machines.

A true military arsenal of torpedoes, missiles and cannons.

I was so shocked and amazed that I burst out laughing.

I was very surprised to see such weaponry in the inner courtyard

of an apartment house on the outskirts of Rome,

weapons surrounded by chickens and hens.

And the weapons were so well-made that seemed real.

The Weapons.

Childhood games

an endless lifetime passion.

Pino reassembles lifeless materials and transforms them into new objects.

Things combined in a new functionality.

Regeneration, reinvention of matter.

Gian Enzo Sperone exhibits the series in march of 1966.

Pino personally drove his weapons from Roma to the gallery in Torino.

On the road, a policeman pulled Pino's rented truck over

after he noticed a full-size, wheeled military cannon

tied to the back fender.

Pino spent quite some time explaining that yes,

it was a cannon but that it was harmless.

Just a sculpture.

I dream of war of utterly unforeseeable logic.

As simple as a musical phrase.

Playing doesn't necessarily cancel the tragic side of existence.

When you necessarily have to play you're not necessarily free.

Anna, Pino's best friend and artist herself,

brings him to see The Living Theatre on stage in Roma.

Pino discovers his calling towards performing arts.

Not only will he stage actual performances

but he will often pose next to his works with a playful instinct

conveying an irresistible sense of storytelling.

The land...

perfumed.

Michelle

Michelle

Fate.

Waves of probability, loose threads of energy.

Can circumstance be averted?

Somewhere, in different dimensions,

invisible and unknown to human eyes,

infinite ourselves exist

whose lives are only slightly different from ours.

With a different destiny perhaps.

It's not easy to talk about Pascali after four years.

He died in September 1968 in a motorcycle accident in an underpass in Rome.

His death left a great void.

Ours was not an ordinary relationship between gallery owner and artist.

It was a formidable partnership, he was my best friend.

We shared a unique friendship as well as a professional relationship.

And in our relationship, as in his communication with others,

Pascali would convey a sense of almightiness.

Victim of a tragic accident, Pino Pascali, the bad boy of Italian sculpture,

is no longer with us.

(with no limitation of time, space, purpose)

Departure.

Enough seen.

Enough had.

City noise, in the evening and in sunlight, and always.

Enough known.

The stations of life.

O Sounds and Visions...

Departure amid new noise and affection!

Pino was lively,

full of unconventional and surprising thoughts.

The day he eventually bought a motorcycle

he stopped combing his hair.

"The wind will comb my hair", he said.

City noise.

What am I doing here?

I had a dream.

I was walking in the city in the early morning.

It was strange...

just a few people around, only a few automobiles.

Streetlights were on as it was still nightime.

A fascinating contrast.

All houses looked empty.

Empty buildings.

Empty windows.

I didn't feel lonely, I felt calm.

Geometric empty spaces.

Comforting.

All of a sudden mysterious animals appeared

from the depth of the earth and from the ashes.

I took photos of them.

I saw them for a while.

I didn't make up anything.

As, when we are in love, we live the illusion of perpetual remembrance

so I had the illusion that these animals really existed.

Fragments resurface from the subconscious.

Prehistoric animals come back to life.

In the mid-1960s Fabio Sargentini succeeds his father Bruno

and takes over the direction of "L'Attico"

at that time located on the top floor

of an apartment building in Piazza di Spagna.

The gallery opens up to contemporary art trends

becoming a work of art in itself.

Empty windows...

Mutilation

Identification

Protection

Possession

The first exhibition Sargentini organizes in his gallery

opens on October 29, 1966,

"Pino Pascali New Sculptures".

Fabulous adventures become real

due to the hyperbolic intrusiveness of the artworks.

Nothing is true

everything is permitted.

And then the artwork which most amazed the visitors,

"The Sea".

A bolt of lightning strikes 24 panels of waves

from which two whales emerge.

Their tails on the wall, suspended over the water.

Reverberations of Ulysses' travels

of Collodi's shipwreck.

I go to the sea as soon as I can.

There is no other place where I feel so full.

The blinding light.

1967

Over the summer he displays his artwork in Paris,

Montreal, Essen.

The 8th of june.

Fire, Image,

Water, Earth

opens at "L'Attico".

For the first time natural elements enter the gallery space

with their disruptive, primal value.

Rain water covers my steps.

(rainwater covers up my steps from the sea)

The ground gets reflected in the water.

Real transparency, artificial transparency.

Water that rises to the surface.

It is the sea gone with the sun.

In July a collective exhibition of environmental works

opens in Foligno.

Pino shows a new sea

a geometrical sea, not yet or no longer real.

I chose the sea because...

it's quite some time I'm chasing its image.

I chose to make the sea with water

because water has got unpredictable properties.

Specifically its color, that allows a peculiar depth and spatiality

that is missing in paintings.

The past must be invented.

The future must be revised.

Doing both makes what the present is.

Discovery never stops.

One single day can contain a world.

I'm tormented by my love for you.

It has been found again.

Eternity.

Pino could glue, saw and weld

with swift and expert precision.

When drawing or when labouring with his materials

he seemed in a state of bliss, totally absorbed.

Enraptured by an obstinate frenzy to make things,

his big hands were active and tense.

Sometimes he injured himself, cut his flesh,

burned the skin.

A thousand dreams within me softly burn.

At times his enthusiasm would suddenly drop off

leaving him irascible, insecure, obsessive.

"I'll die young," he often said,

showing the palm of his hand, his life-line severed in half.

Shooting what captures his attention,

wandering across the docks of the port,

Pino often returns to Napoli to collect ideas.

Always close to the sea.

Like his drawings, these photographic notes

will become an instrument of reconnaissance

a design track, font of inspiration.

Magic flowers droned.

The slopes cradled him.

Beasts of a fabulous elegance moved about.

1968, March.

"Nature's Reconstruction" displays at "L'Attico".

Pascali returns to discover unpredictable materials

carving out unpredictable objects.

The clouds gathered over the high sea,

formed of an eternity of hot tears.

Desire, childhood.

The agricultural myth imbued with Mediterranean culture.

Pino resets everything

starting from a primal interpretation of nature.

Yet does so without rejecting the artifices of industrial materials.

You ask if all things vanish

in this little mist of memories.

I would say to you, no

the hour approaches when you will pass beyond time.

Primitive myth.

Archetype.

Roots.

Water, land.

Pino is invited to participate in the 34th Biennale di Venezia

with a room devoted solely to his works.

Over the frenzied months before the inauguration

he burns the candle at both ends.

An artist's political influence has to be judged not by his attitude

but by his expressive technique.

We can argue that the Biennale doesn't work well,

that is a burgeois, fascist, commercial institution.

But this is not a problem for the students to solve.

A few days before the opening students are rallying against the Exhibition.

Considering the Biennale part of the mechanism

turning art into a mere commodity,

they call on the artists to retract their works.

The Swedish pavilion dresses in mourning

by covering its glass windows with black drapes.

One window bears the words,

"The Biennale is dead".

No incidents occurred this morning.

A few dozen students expressed their dissent

beyond the entrance gates of the Giardini.

In the Italian pavilion an artist turned his paintings against the wall

while another removed his artworks entirely.

Pino seems to be the only one willing to meet the protesters

and engage in a dialogue with them

revealing an independence of thought that the other artists would not show.

Nevertheless he decides to temporarily close his pavilion.

There are some who still want to tackle moral problems with violence.

This is a defeat as we have lost the freedom

to express ourselves whenever and wherever we wish.

In particular the five elements displayed at L'Attico in Rome

complement one another with four cobwebs

placed at the corners of the gallery.

Therefore, appears to be appropriate

to arrange the acquisition of the webbed cocoon.

Hence, the present agreement also applies to the purchase of the concept

for the realization of the cocoon, to be included in any exhibition...

And white appears.

Absolute white

White beyond all whiteness

White of the coming of white

White without compromise

through exclusion

through total eradication of non-white.

Insane, enraged white

screaming with whiteness.

Fanatical, furious, riddling the victim.

Horrible electric white, implacable,

murderous.

White in bursts of white.

God of 'white'.

No, not a god

a howler monkey.

He who leaves a trace leaves a wound.

Pino Pascali dies after sustaining injuries

during a motorcycle accident in an underpass in Roma.

How long do we have?

His room at the Biennale receives the Gran Premio.

And finally leave.

I had never thought I would have to write these words.

I have never wanted to write them.

Those who were aware of Pino's artwork

were well acquainted with how manifold and multifaceted it was,

how much it disclosed his seething genius,

like the ground after a heavy downfall of rain.

Yet, for those who met the person behind the artwork,

this anguishing loss is entangled with the astonishment

of seeing such a talented young man disappear,

recalling his dauntless energy,

which seemed to sizzle like incandescent iron

not only with water, but also within the air and the surrounding ground.

Where would Pascali have taken his overbearing imagination?

Our grief has no respite, our tears burn in vain.

A life so abruptly taken away

is somewhat stifling.

This is the story of a return.

To one's own land, to the sun, to the sea.

What all this truly means is something we cannot explain.

The answer is different for each and every one of us

bringing our own story, language,

our own freedom.