Pino Pascali

An “ironic visual reportage” of four artist projects at the L’Attico gallery in Rome, 1968. Patella infuses the work of the artists from the arte povera movement with touches of surrealism, as tinted monochromatic footage of these exhibitions/actions lends them a silent film aesthetic. The title refers to the last names of the main players: gallery owner Fabio Sargentini and artists Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Pino Pascali and Luca Maria Patella himself. Kounellis is shown using the gallery as a studio, dying bits of cloth among live animals; Mattiacci engages passerby in a happening on the city streets; Patella and Rosa Foschi are shown in a similar scenario to Terra Animata, with a flag performance in a landscape; and Pascali executes a bizarre ritual on the beach, covered to his neck in sand and later planting whole loaves of bread.

A (temporary) leave of many friends who are my truest world, with the attempt of getting them together in an ideal summary conceived to support me during my being far away. –A. L.

In 1958 Pino Pascali made friends with Sandro Lodolo and shortly after he began to collaborate in his advertising studio, Lodolofilm. Over the course of ten years, he will make dozens of carousels. For Algida ice creams, in 1960, Pascali created "The Killers". However, the customer did not accept the proposal, deeming it unsuitable due to the too modern graphics for the time and the scenes of violence. However, Pascali continued to develop the subject by intervening on the style of the characters, creating sketches and sets and creating the basis for an independent animated film. In 1967 a trailer lasting 1'37” was made and proposed to the Cineriz production house, which appreciated the project but did not want to produce it because they considered it too sophisticated. Despite the second refusal, Pino Pascali continued to work on this project until the summer of 1968, when his life was cut short by a road accident.