Homage to Italian Sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro

Bill in front of the 'opening' piece, Le Battaglie ("The Battles" 1995), which Pomodoro says was inspired by Paolo Uccello's "La Battaglia di San Romano" ("The Battle of San Romano" - first half of 1400s) in Siena. (Hisham Matar's "A Month in Siena" has many incisive pages devoted to this painting.)

Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro died a little over 2 weeks ago, June 22, the day before his 99th birthday. His works are prominently featured in Rome, including his "smooth-skinned orb slashed to reveal a complex core"--to borrow from the New York Times obit here in front of the Farnesina (the Italian Department of State/Foreign Affairs). To mark his passing from his extraordinarily fruitful life - to the end - we are reprinting here our June 2023 review of an extensive and educational (for us) exhibit of his works in the Fendi-restored Palazzo della Civilta' Romano in EUR.

******************

A little late to the game, we "discovered" Arnaldo Pomodoro, thanks to a newspaper ad on the opening of a new exhibition of some of his large-scale works at Fendi's gallery at the restored Palazzo della Civilta' Romano in EUR. It's not that we hadn't seen his work before - we have long appreciated the globe/sphere in front of the Farnesina, the Italian "state department" in Rome. His "sphere within a sphere" are all over the world, we now know.

The exhibition at Fendi  - Il Grande Teatro delle Civilta' - "The Great Theater of Civilizations" - is remarkable for its installation of numerous enormous works - on the scale of Richard Serra's (though Pomodoro's are one-sided - one cannot walk in and around them).

The Palazzo (also known as the "Square Coliseum") is itself so imposing that at first we found Pomodoro's works installed outside of it simply too small and squatty.

Case in point, right.  Dianne tries to figure out what it is - against the backdrop of a much more imposing statue from the building's original design. Turns out it's Agamemnon, and the design was for a Greek theater production in 2014 in Siracusa and so, makes sense. It wasn't designed for this place.

Two aspects of the exhibit appealed to us. First, the delight of children grooving to the artwork, as at left.

Second, the excellent and informative flat material that gives shape to Pomodoro's lengthy career. He's about to turn 97 (the English language Wikipedia entry says his active years WERE 1954-2005 - whoops!). These are displayed in bright, large glass cases, slide-out drawers - both vertical and horizontal. We were intrigued by his work in the graphics medium.

And we learned about the placement of his works around the world. Newspaper articles and drawings showed that one of his obelisk-type sculptures had been installed on the Gianicolo, in a highly visible but unlikely spot - the traffic circle on the way up to the Bambino Gesu' Hospital that hosts the large entrances to the bus parking for the hordes visiting St. Peter's and the Vatican (you can also access the Caput Mundi shopping mall Bill wrote about recently from this underground parking venue). Below is the sketch - but it must have been there because there also were photos of it being installed. We missed it "in the flesh."

Left, Dianne checking out one of the drawers with sketches, newspaper articles, graphic works, and explanations. (If only my kitchen drawers worked this well!)

A hand-out at the exhibition shows the location of Pomodoro's works around Rome. We later were on a tour of Palazzo dello Sport (Nervi's ground-breaking building for the 1960 Olympics; Ali - as Cassius Clay - won his gold medal here), which features a Pomodoro obelisk in another once-traffic-circle (named Piazzale Pier Luigi Nervi), now abandoned and rather forlorn.

The photo at right shows the condition of the piazza and statue.

We've heard the complaint (and are tempted ourselves) to view Pomodoro as a "one-trick pony." If you unwrap the obelisk, it looks like the flat pieces. The shapes are similar throughout his work. 

The exhibition at Fendi ends with a newer piece (1996-97, below) that is a complement in white to the introductory Le Battaglie that leads off this post.

To us, it didn't seem to move the needle much in terms of his art. 

The title of the work is Movimento in pieno aria e nel profondo ("Movement in free space and in the depths" - or something like that!).

Close-up at right.

On the other hand, if one looks at his costumes, graphic work, public art - the way it is placed in the world, his vision seems greater.  

We close with some of these other pieces, including our having fun with them - which is a benefit of art as well.

If you can't get to Rome to see Il Grande Teatro delle Civilta' - "The Great Theater of Civilizations" before it closes October 1, the website is comprehensive. It includes all the works, plus a visual tour, plus a map of his works all over the world.

In Italian and English here: https://arnaldopomodoro.fendi.com/en/

Dianne

RST with one of the costumes, this one from 1986 for Didone (Dido), one of my favorite tragic heroines. .

There's a relationship between the faux "printer's wheel" outside (Rotativa di Babilonia - Babylon's wheel, 1991) and the graphics-type work inside (Tracce I-VII - Traces 1-7, 1998) (above and below).

A close-up of Il cubo ("The Cube," 1961-62), one of the first works in the show, and one one of us found intriguing - maybe because it had some "white space" in it.

Below is the most recent of Pomodoro's sculptures in the exhibition - Continuum, 2010 - one that seems to highlight made-up hieroglyphics. Pomodoro's large, rectangular pieces remind us of Richard Serra's, but the Italian sculptor's are very much 2-dimensional with bas relief, not the 3-dimensional, run-around-and-through-it of Serra.

The artist with his barbed take on Fendi's Peekaboo bag - on display during the exhibition: 

(Image credit: Carlos & Dario Tettamanzi)

Sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro and Fendi Put On a Show

Bill in front of the 'opening' piece, Le Battaglie ("The Battles" 1995), which Pomodoro says was inspired by Paolo Uccello's "La Battaglia di San Romano" ("The Battle of San Romano" - first half of 1400s) in Siena. (Hisham Matar's "A Month in Siena" has many incisive pages devoted to this painting.)

A little late to the game, we "discovered" Arnaldo Pomodoro, thanks to a newspaper ad on the opening of a new exhibition of some of his large-scale works at Fendi's gallery at the restored Palazzo della Civilta' Romano in EUR. It's not that we hadn't seen his work before - we have long appreciated the globe/sphere in front of the Farnesina, the Italian "state department" in Rome. His "sphere within a sphere" are all over the world, we now know.

The exhibition at Fendi  - Il Grande Teatro delle Civilta' - "The Great Theater of Civilizations" - is remarkable for its installation of numerous enormous works - on the scale of Richard Serra's (though Pomodoro's are one-sided - one cannot walk in and around them).

The Palazzo (also known as the "Square Coliseum") is itself so imposing that at first we found Pomodoro's works installed outside of it simply too small and squatty.

Case in point, right.  Dianne tries to figure out what it is - against the backdrop of a much more imposing statue from the building's original design. Turns out it's Agamemnon, and the design was for a Greek theater production in 2014 in Siracusa and so, makes sense. It wasn't designed for this place.

Two aspects of the exhibit appealed to us. First, the delight of children grooving to the artwork, as at left.

Second, the excellent and informative flat material that gives shape to Pomodoro's lengthy career. He's about to turn 97 (the English language Wikipedia entry says his active years WERE 1954-2005 - whoops!). These are displayed in bright, large glass cases, slide-out drawers - both vertical and horizontal. We were intrigued by his work in the graphics medium.

And we learned about the placement of his works around the world. Newspaper articles and drawings showed that one of his obelisk-type sculptures had been installed on the Gianicolo, in a highly visible but unlikely spot - the traffic circle on the way up to the Bambino Gesu' Hospital that hosts the large entrances to the bus parking for the hordes visiting St. Peter's and the Vatican (you can also access the Caput Mundi shopping mall Bill wrote about recently from this underground parking venue). Below is the sketch - but it must have been there because there also were photos of it being installed. We missed it "in the flesh."

Left, Dianne checking out one of the drawers with sketches, newspaper articles, graphic works, and explanations. (If only my kitchen drawers worked this well!)

A hand-out at the exhibition shows the location of Pomodoro's works around Rome. We later were on a tour of Palazzo dello Sport (Nervi's ground-breaking building for the 1960 Olympics; Ali - as Cassius Clay - won his gold medal here), which features a Pomodoro obelisk in another once-traffic-circle (named Piazzale Pier Luigi Nervi), now abandoned and rather forlorn.

The photo at right shows the condition of the piazza and statue.

We've heard the complaint (and are tempted ourselves) to view Pomodoro as a "one-trick pony." If you unwrap the obelisk, it looks like the flat pieces. The shapes are similar throughout his work. 

The exhibition at Fendi ends with a newer piece (1996-97, below) that is a complement in white to the introductory Le Battaglie that leads off this post.

To us, it didn't seem to move the needle much in terms of his art. 

The title of the work is Movimento in pieno aria e nel profondo ("Movement in free space and in the depths" - or something like that!).

Close-up at right.

On the other hand, if one looks at his costumes, graphic work, public art - the way it is placed in the world, his vision seems greater.  

We close with some of these other pieces, including our having fun with them - which is a benefit of art as well.

If you can't get to Rome to see Il Grande Teatro delle Civilta' - "The Great Theater of Civilizations" before it closes October 1, the website is comprehensive. It includes all the works, plus a visual tour, plus a map of his works all over the world.

In Italian and English here: https://arnaldopomodoro.fendi.com/en/

Dianne

RST with one of the costumes, this one from 1986 for Didone (Dido), one of my favorite tragic heroines. .

There's a relationship between the faux "printer's wheel" outside (Rotativa di Babilonia - Babylon's wheel, 1991) and the graphics-type work inside (Tracce I-VII - Traces 1-7, 1998) (above and below).

A close-up of Il cubo ("The Cube," 1961-62), one of the first works in the show, and one one of us found intriguing - maybe because it had some "white space" in it.

Below is the most recent of Pomodoro's sculptures in the exhibition - Continuum, 2010 - one that seems to highlight made-up hieroglyphics. Pomodoro's large, rectangular pieces remind us of Richard Serra's, but the Italian sculptor's are very much 2-dimensional with bas relief, not the 3-dimensional, run-around-and-through-it of Serra.

The artist with his barbed take on Fendi's Peekaboo bag - on display during the exhibition: 

(Image credit: Carlos & Dario Tettamanzi)

The Colonial Museum in a Post-Colonial World

What remains on display of the original "Colonial Museum" is half-way down these stairs on either side of the landing.

There is, buried in the complex of Italian museums that sit mostly unvisited in EUR (about 8 kilometers/5 miles from the Coliseum but easily accessible by metro) a "museum" that purports to display, and deal with, Italy's colonial past. Just finding this collection tells one something about the country's failure to confront its activities in northern Africa, colonial activities that stretched from the 1890s to the fall of Fascism in World War II. (encyclopedia.com has excellent historical background on the Italian colonies.)

Changes in the museum's name and location over the years underscore Italy's approach to the colonies. 

Likely the entrance near the zoo,
before the museum acquired
its new name.  

The museum opened in 1924, in the early years of Fascism, as Museo Coloniale, the Colonial Museum, on the Quirinale, near the seat of government, and it was designed to create pride in Italy's quests. It was not conceived of as scientific (as were similar museums in other European countries), but very much like a trade show, under the Ministry of the Colonies. There were 20 rooms, each featuring a different city or region. (There was an earlier version, dating from 1904, featuring flora from the colonies, located near a botanical institute on via Panisperna in the Monti quarter).

In 1932, the Colonial Museum was moved next to the zoo, perhaps indicating the attraction of the "exotic other," including animals like the lion. Mussolini inaugurated it with a new name a year or so later, "Museo dell'Africa Italiana" (Museum of Italian Africa). It showcased "dangerous" African fauna and the bravery of collectors, deemed "pioneers." In addition to animal trophies, there was the blood-stained uniform of General Rodolfo Graziani, known as the "butcher of Fezzan" for his brutal methods in Libya. (There's a fascinating, unsympathetic portrayal of him [by Oliver Reed] in The Lion in the Desert, an excellent 1980 film by Moustapha Akkad [Anthony Quinn plays the heroic Bedouin leader, Omar Mukhtar]. Banned in Italy when released, it was first available there in 2009 via pay TV, and now one can purchase it on DVD - worth the price.)

The museum remained closed from 1937 (ostensibly to be redesigned; there's some dispute over this date - Wikipedia [Italian] suggests it remained open until 1943) to 1947. 

The museum reopened after World War II as "Museo Africano" ("African Museum"), but even then, the Italians described it (in a 1948 memo to the United Nations) as dealing with "previously unproductive tribes." It remained open until 1970, when it was essentially abandoned. There was also a major theft in 1977. None of this information appears in Wikipedia, which simply says its tutelage was "then entrusted to the Italian-African Institute, which from 1995 was reorganized as the Italian Institute for Africa and the East, both placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2011 that Institute was considered defunct, and the collection (in very poor condition and without proper labelling) was transferred again to the overall Ministero dei beni culturali (Ministry of cultural works) and warehoused.

So where is it, and where are the 12,000 objects - objects of "others" gathered to be observed by Europeans - and what is its name now?

From EUR's central Piazza Marconi, we trooped around to
several of the museum buildings, past many entrances closed
and others open to other activities, finally to find a
temporary entrance to "the Pigorini" and a woman behind
the desk who finally knew what we were talking about.

We had read the museum was located in the newly-reorganized complex under the overall name "Museo della Civiltà" - which was the name of one of the several museums in EUR, and whose entrance graced the cover of our second guidebook, "Modern Rome" (that entrance now leads to the planetarium! - yes, we tried asking there about the "Museo Africano," which the visitor desk had never heard of), re-branded as "MuCiv" (!) and incorporating the several museums that were in EUR, including the original "Museo della Civiltà," which has been closed "for renovations" since 2014 (and it's unfortunate that the public cannot see its great model of ancient Rome). In 2022, MuCiv is asking the public for input on its plans for a radical refashioning of its collections. In English and Italian you can find those current plans here and here.

The entrance on our book cover
won't get you there.

Success! of a sort.  We found our way to a temporary, new entrance to another part of MuCiv, the crown jewel of the museums, Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini (known as "the Pigorini"), and after some discussion with the ticket seller, she gave us free journalists' passes, and we found what is now called the Museo Italo Africano Ilaria Alpi, or the Italian-African Museum, now named for a young Italian journalist killed in Mogadishu in 1994. 

What exists are a few objects (photos right and left and below) on either side of the landing of a stairway (albeit a monumental, large stairway, photo at top of post), accompanied by some plastic sheets indicating the questions raised by retaining and showing objects collected by colonists. 

The object at right is a "statuette of the Konso," "donated" by a Captain. It's hard to read the inscription (left) but it says something to the effect that "when a Konso (from SW Ethiopia) husband died, his wives were buried with him, and that this (I assume the tall statuette next to the plaque) was the tomb of a woman buried alive, according to superstition...

and that this was the first of the objects the Captain "astutely brought back - in 1927."

The plastic sheet hanging alongside these objects says, in Italian and English, "From the seventies of the last century up to 2017, the colonial collections had been locked in cases. They were moved, over several decades, between various institutions in Rome. The colonial Museum, and the history that it represents, were never challenged either on a museographic stage or in a public debate. Opening the cases through the collections, rescuing the latter with conservation interventions and making them accessible to the civil society are the first necessary steps so as to not allow the Italian colonial experience to be forgotten."

Italy is one of many countries confronting its colonial past. According to the panel discussion I observed at the Swiss Institute in Rome, "Erased Memories: Italian colonialism and its material legacies," it has done a very poor job so far in this regard. The scholars talked about "historical amnesia, cancelling, and the failure of Italian memory to accept" its colonial past. Waves of ex-colonial subjects, including Albanians as well as Africans, came into Italy in the 1990s, raising issues of responsibility and acceptance. The new prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has run, like Trump, on a fiercely anti-immigrant platform. I should point out as well that while the objects were put under the auspices of the Ministry of beni culturali, the paper objects, including labels and such material as there is on provenance, were given to the National Library, according to the speakers at the Swiss Institute, which included Beatrice Falcucci who has written on  "The former Museo Coloniale in Rome and beyond: colonial collections in Italy between history and the present." The separation of objects and paper does not auger well for placing the materials in their proper context. In other words, it will be difficult for Italy, given its current custody arrangements, to make the claim that it can do a better job of preserving these materials than can their places of origin.

Admittedly, this project (the objects we saw and their measly space) is a first step and is designed to let the public participate in the "unveiling." It is in fact called "Unveiled storages" and is described as "an installation that aims to place the former Museo coloniale collections at the heart of the MuCiv's museum spaces...to render objects accessible to everyone, even if only partially, that seem hidden from view and that had been hidden for several decades."

Above, the well-designed hall on the first floor of the Pigorini ethnographic museum.
This floor is mostly devoted to objects from Africa.

On the first floor (second floor, English style) of the Pigorini is a very high-quality exhibition of African objects collected before the Fascist era. But don't these raise similar questions? Where do they belong? Who "gave" them and why? The Swiss Institute speakers asked if there even could be a post-colonial museum. Should the main purpose be a cross-cultural approach, or preservation, or repatriation?

There is an informative video, in English by the Goethe Institute, on the ongoing project.

I've put more photos at the end of this post. The first one describes the Fascists' use of ancient Roman imagery, including colonialism; most of the rest are of the ethnographic exhibit.

Dianne

Certainly looks like the artworks that inspired Picasso.

A beautiful stained glass window is at the end of the large staircase.

It's signed by "Giulio Rosso, dis. [designed by],
Art glass window. G.C. Giuliani, es. [the window maker]
Rome 1942 - XXI [Fascist year 21]"

History by Walking Around: the new tourist destination of Quartiere Giuliano Dalmata

 

As usual with Rome, we find some of the most interesting information - and add to our knowledge of history -  just by walking around. Last year - when we were walking back from our intended destination of the Laurentina 38 housing project (about which Bill wrote in July 2019) we ran across this "monument" (top photo) - with the words "To the fallen, Giuliani Dalmati," placed on a large boulder from the Carso - a rocky region of Italy that was the subject of Italian/Austria-Hungary battles in World War I, and was a focus of competing armies and political interests again in World War II. 

We also saw on a nearby building this plaque, 

which basically reads:

March 1947: The Exodus of Italian Pola: Hospitable Rome welcomes the Istrian, Fiumean [Fiume is now called Rijeka] and Dalmation refugees. President Oscar Sinigaglia [a street in the map below bears his name], with the National Organization of Repatriated Workers and Refugees, gives life to the "Giuliano Dalmation Neighborhood"  The plaque is marked as put up by the National Association of Venezia, Giulia, e Dalmazia (Venezia-Giulia and Dalmatia)

Quite difficult to make sense of this if one is less that fully knowledgeable about Italy's role in World War I, Fascism and World War II, plus some post-World War II history. In giving it a try recently, we ran across an article touting the restoration of the monument at the top of this post, "after years of neglect and degradation" (it didn't look so bad to us in 2019!) only this past October.

And, even more recent, on December 30 of this past year, the "Quartiere Giuliano Dalmata" (map at end of post) was welcomed - with a plaque and Q Code - in the tourist layout of Rome. 

Not exactly readable here, but the plaque relates that the "quartiere" or neighborhood started in 1939 as workers' housing for laborers building Mussolini's E42 expo grounds (now the fully developed EUR zone, which is featured in our books) a few miles further south of Rome. 

When the war brought Mussolini's unfinished international exhibition construction to a halt, the workers abandoned the housing. The Allies occupied the buildings for a while. When they left, in 1947, a nucleus of 12 families - fleeing their homes in Pola, which was ceded to Yugoslavia and is better known as the Istrian Peninsula - were settled here. The dorms were converted to small apartments, and in 1955 another 2,000 people from the ex-Italian Pola region settled here, giving the quarter its name. 

There are still some political joustings and resentments over the "exodus." Apparently (I'm trying to tread lightly here) some of the Italians were settled in the Istrian Peninsula by the Fascist government, which claimed the area and wanted it settled by, and dominated by, Italians.

The boulder monument was put up in 1961, and in 2008 a sculpture (photo below, right) was erected in the nearby Largo Vittime delle Foibe Istriane ("Largo [something like a piazza] Victims of the Istrian Foibe").  Bill commented on the sculpture in a 2011 post here. 

Delving into the foibe (deep sink holes into which victims were thrown, sometimes alive) and their political ramifications is beyond my pay grade at this point - perhaps for a later post.  Because the Day of Remembrance for the victims and those in the exodus that resulted in the neighborhood described here is February 10 - not long ago - we offer a link to an Ansa article describing the reasons for the Day of Remembrance (and a bit of the politics).

Dianne