Rome · Artists, cinema and neighbourhood lifeSeptember 12, 202614 min read

Pigneto in Rome: artists, street art and cinema in a montage-neighbourhood

From Pasolini and Rossellini to contemporary studios: the people who turned Pigneto into a form of storytelling.

Omino71 · omaggio a Pier Paolo Pasolini · via Fanfulla da Lodi. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Omino71 · omaggio a Pier Paolo Pasolini · via Fanfulla da LodiBlocal / You Local Rome

A montage, not a postcard

Pigneto is understood through cuts: railway lines, low houses, painted walls, morning shutters and studios behind anonymous doors. Earlier scenes remain visible beneath new ones.

This view avoids reducing the area either to decline or to a bohemian brand. Its culture lives in people who work, write, rehearse and argue within a still-domestic geography.

Fabio Saccomani · (S)ink: Invisible Memorial · via del Pigneto. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Fabio Saccomani · (S)ink: Invisible Memorial · via del PignetoAvvenire · Image credit ↗

The neighbourhood as film set and witness

Rossellini filmed Pina’s tragic run in Rome, Open City here; Pasolini shot Accattone around Via Fanfulla da Lodi and called it an “epic landscape of neorealism”.

Cinema recorded bodies, poverty, desire and conflict rather than using the area as neutral scenery. Pasolini murals now work as public frames that must also help us see the present.

Alice Pasquini · pittura pubblica e narrazione femminile. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Alice Pasquini · pittura pubblica e narrazione femminileAlice Pasquini · Image credit ↗

Jo Amodio and a chorus without one spokesperson

The 2019 documentary Parlare d’arte. Al Pigneto enters studios, theatres, bookshops, music rooms and streets. Brooklyn-born director Jo Amodio has lived here since 1987.

Andrea Alberti, Carola Susani, Antonella Aversa, Marco G. Ferrari, Pino Borselli, Laura Scarpa, Enrico Astolfi, Gina Merulla, Gerardo Casiello and Igiaba Scego show that a cultural community needs no common style.

Vladimir Luxuria · quasi quarant’anni di vita al Pigneto. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Vladimir Luxuria · quasi quarant’anni di vita al PignetoCorriere della Sera · Image credit ↗

Vladimir Luxuria and Alice Pasquini: living means speaking

After almost forty years in the area, Vladimir Luxuria describes Pigneto as “multi-ethnic, multicultural, multisexual”, connecting urban space with freedom and real conflict.

Alice Pasquini’s female figures and intimate scenes turn walls into public pages, meeting viewers who may never enter a gallery.

L’anima musicale nascosta del Pigneto. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — L’anima musicale nascosta del PignetoZero · Image credit ↗

Writing, drawing and moving images

Carola Susani and Igiaba Scego bring reading, migration, colonial memory and layered Italian identities into the chorus; Enrico Astolfi writes the topography of eastern Rome.

Laura Scarpa uses comics and illustration, Antonella Aversa works through painting and sculpture, while Marco G. Ferrari’s video practice studies duration, sound and urban passage.

Laura Scarpa · il fumetto come sguardo critico sul presente. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Laura Scarpa · il fumetto come sguardo critico sul presenteLaura Scarpa / Internazionale · Image credit ↗

Music, theatre and civic rooms

Andrea Alberti’s Mediterranean jazz scores Amodio’s film; Gerardo Casiello represents songwriting within a broader hidden network of rehearsal rooms and small clubs.

Gina Merulla, Pino Borselli and the Nuovo Cinema Aquila remind us that culture also needs bodies, rehearsals, audiences and rooms where time is shared.

Igiaba Scego · scrittura, memoria coloniale e identità. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Igiaba Scego · scrittura, memoria coloniale e identitàHopeRoad Publishing · Image credit ↗

Massimo Scognamiglio: wounding the polished image

Photographer, painter and multimedia artist Massimo Scognamiglio connected part of his practice to Pigneto, including VARCO in 2012. Torn pages, colour and matter interrupt the polished surfaces of fashion photography.

The 2021 work reproduced here forms an unstable face from torn magazine paper, pastels and pencils: an apt metaphor for a neighbourhood assembled from public identity and material memory.

Massimo Scognamiglio · It feels like it’s just the universe looking out my mouth #8 · 2021. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Massimo Scognamiglio · It feels like it’s just the universe looking out my mouth #8 · 2021Massimo Scognamiglio / Exibart Prize · Image credit ↗

Walls, independent spaces and the right not to become a brand

Works by Pasquini, Omino71, Maupal, Mr. Klevra, Aladin, Blu and Etam Cru coexist with Spazio Faro, Spazio Urano and Fabio Saccomani’s rain-activated memorial to migrants.

The critical question is who can keep making culture as rents, nightlife and reputation change. Art can measure exclusions as well as decorate regeneration.

Spazio Faro · mostre, libri e incontri al Pigneto. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Spazio Faro · mostre, libri e incontri al PignetoSpazio Faro / Rome Art Week · Image credit ↗

From Rome to Milan: Pigneto meets Ortica

Milan’s most useful parallel is Ortica, a small working-class district enclosed by railway lines, industrial memory, music and public painting. Since 2015, Or.Me and the Milanese duo Orticanoodles—Walter Contipelli and Alessandra Montanari—have built a participatory archive on its walls.

Portraits of Alda Merini, Enzo Jannacci, Giorgio Gaber, Ornella Vanoni, Dario Fo and Nanni Svampa make a Milanese lineage visible. Pigneto remains dispersed among homes and practices; Ortica organises memory as an open-air museum.

Blu · lavoro, potere e liberazione all’ex Snia. Contemporary art, photography or visual culture featured by Acquistare Arte. — Blu · lavoro, potere e liberazione all’ex SniaBlocal / You Local Rome · Image credit ↗

Sources & links

First published by Acquistare Arte ↗

Blocal / You Local Rome / Avvenire / Alice Pasquini / Corriere della Sera / Zero / Laura Scarpa / Internazionale / HopeRoad Publishing / Massimo Scognamiglio / Exibart Prize / Spazio Faro / Rome Art Week