“Pasolini in chiaroscuro” exhibition at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco – Villa Sauber

The exhibition at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco – Villa Sauber explores the influence of classical and contemporary painting on the cinema of Pier Paolo Pasolini. ‘Pasolini in chiaroscuro’ brings together pieces of various kinds (film excerpts, paintings, drawings, installations, photographs, etc.) from the 16th century to the present day. It concludes by presenting works by artists who paid tribute to Pasolini. Half a century after the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini, his influence still resonates in the various fields he occupied. Read, quoted, commented on, adapted, he inspires today’s creators. Although he liked to define himself above all as a “writer”, it is through his films that he reached the general public. Thus cinema, which provided an echo chamber for his political ideas, holds a central place in his work. This is the aspect that ‘Pasolini in chiaroscuro’ first focuses on, juxtaposing excerpts from ‘Accattone’, ‘Theorem’, ‘Salò’, etc., with paintings by Pontormo, Pieter Claesz, Giorgio Morandi, Fernand Léger, or Francis Bacon. The exhibition then shows how the writer-director symmetrically inspired his successors. Around thirty international artists are thus brought together, many of them having worked on the very material of his films: Adel Abdessemed, Giulia Andreani, Tom Burr, Adam Chodzko, Clara Cornu, Walter Dahn, Regina Demina, Marlene Dumas, Richard Dumas, Cerith Wyn Evans, Laurent Fiévet, Alain Fleischer, Claire Fontaine, Giovanni Fontana, Jenny Holzer, William Kentridge, Astrid Klein, Stéphane Mandelbaum, Martial, Fabio Mauri, Charles de Meaux, Dino Pedriali, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, Giuseppe Stampone, Jean-Luc Verna, Francesco Vezzoli, and John Waters.