Casa Balla: A Visit to the Home of the Futurist Artist - Home in Rome Series #5

Above, a cramped hallway with every surface painted, and light fixtures designed by Balla.

Among its many contemporary wonders, Rome has the home of Futurist artist Giacomo Balla, an apartment Balla made into one of his great works of art, thanks to the contemporary national art gallery MAXXI which restored and manages it. Every surface of the multi-room apartment in the della Vittoria neighborhood (just north of Prati and the Vatican) is covered with the great 20th-century Futurist's art.

The Turin-born Balla moved into the home in June1929, when he was 58, with his wife and two daughters, both painters. They transformed the "clerical" apartment into a work of art in which they all lived until their deaths, the last in 1994.

Every inch is designed and decorated, from chairs and rugs (left) to lights (below).

Clothes, dishware, cabinets, door handles - nothing escaped Balla's desire to shape it, design it, paint it. Below, a small desk and dresser under a loft bed, with Rome the Second time authors taking a selfie in the mirror.

Right, the "Studiolo Rosso" (Little Red Study) where Balla wrote. It's not for the claustrophobic among us.

Left, even clothes were fashioned to the Futurist's design, clothes and the closet doors - inside and out.

When we visited in April of last year, the salone was set up as the artist's studio (above). It also hosted an exhibition of Balla works on paper. The design of furniture - chairs, tables, desks - is, of course, all Futurist.

We've put a few more photos at the end of the post - but you will want to see this for yourself. It's extraordinary. Don't miss it.

Casa Balla's schedule is somewhat unpredictable. It was open this past December and January, and is open now (from March 1) through April 27. After that, who knows? One can visit the home only with a small group tour (in Italian but likely some people will speak some English and it's worth it even if you can't understand the tour leader's talk - a small and informative dual-language pamphlet is available), and advance tickets from MAXXI, get them here: https://casaballa.maxxi.art/en/ - that's the English site. If you scroll down a bit, a bubble will open up at the upper right for conversion to Italian ("IT", if in Italian, do the same and you'll see "EN" for English). Thursday through Sunday, 10-12 and 4-6 on the hour. Interestingly, the building has an elevator (the apartment is on a fairly high floor), but it's generally not available to MAXXI visitors (I suppose they aren't paying for their share of the elevator).

Balla joins our "Home in Rome Series," the other 4 of which were posted in 2011 and 2013: Goethe, de Chirico, Pirandello, and Moravia.

Dianne

A lovely pink and aqua bathroom.

Bottles that would make Morandi proud.

The elevator you can't ride.

The Fascist-era entrance to the building, with no hint of what's inside.

Playful Romans: Their Decorated Vehicles

We can't be sure that decorated vehicles are more common in Rome and environs than elsewhere, but it does seem so.  Perhaps the tradition began with the Italian Futurists, whose fondness for speed and movement made the painting of fast-moving vehicles, from bicycles to airplanes, a natural.

 Futurism was serious and ideological.  In contemporary Rome, it's playfulness that rules.

 Scooter owners like to sticker their rides. 

This fan of the A.S. Roma soccer team likes stickers that attack Juve (Juventus, a Turin top league team), Rome's nemesis:  Juve Merda (Juve is shit), and Juventino Bastardo (adding the "ino" - means "Little Juventus")

 Near the Vatican, we found a car, apparently abandoned, "decorated" with the owner's philosophical message.

 If you read Italian and have the patience, you can figure out what that message is.  It seems Luigi has a website. 

 Decorated commercial vehicles are common.  Below, the first promises home grocery delivery.  The second is a panel truck from Ariccia, a town in the Alban Hills that's famous for its pork. 

And this one, which bills itself as a Europa Club Fiat 500, advertises a slots parlor while welcoming Mr. Grava.  OK.   

Rome, the streets of Trastevere, a bicycle-driven cart, fully decked out.  And abandoned. 

Finally, back to the (contemporary) art world.  Here, street artist Alice decorates a mini-trailer in the parking lot of the L'ex-Lanificio, an avant-garde art space on via di Pietralata. 

Bill

Rome's right-wing Graffiti: the 2014 Collection

We're not fans of people tagging and writing on Rome's buildings.  But not writing about it won't make it go away.  We doubt the graffiti writers are reading the RST blog and rejoicing in their having been discovered, or recognized.

Most of the casual graffiti writing--maybe 90%--is right-wing.  Disaffected youth expressing their ideas and concerns, such as they are.  Here's the rightist stuff we found on Rome's walls in 2014.

"Tutto il resto e' noia"/All the rest is boredom or, perhaps better, All that remains is boredom.
When we first saw this, the meaning seemed obvious.  The young rebels of the right--and the Sun Cross/LS (see below) signature suggests we are dealing with the radical right--are bored. It's not clear why they're bored.  It may be because they're not involved--unemployed, not in power, doing uninteresting, menial work.  And the "resto" implies some previous state, or other state, of non-boredom.  According to our Rome friend Massimo, the phrase expresses "a sort of existential ennui,...extended to cover a political stance: everything that is not (political action), everything that is not 'us' (that is, il resto, with their lazy and bourgeois life) is just plain boring." 


We agree.  But there's a complication, though one that doesn't change our sense of what the phrase means: "Tutto il resto e' noia" is also the title and chorus of beloved singer-songwriter Franco Califano's (1938-2013) most famous song.  Although written in 1976 during the anni di piombo, it seems to have no political valence.  It's just a love song.  Correspondent Massimo adds, however, that Califano the man and Califano the songwriter expressed something like a right-wing view of relationships between men and women.  So perhaps there is a link. 

"Vita, amore, guerra"/Life, Love, War.  Echoes here of the vitalism of Nietzsche, the Italian
Futurists, the cult of Mussolini and Fascism, even Hemingway.  You can add to the list.  If you're really bored, you can get some relief by going to war against the Austria/Hungarians.  Or driving an ambulance.








"Eredi di terza posizione"/Heirs of the Third Position.  The "Third Position" was a right-wing group founded in Rome in 1978, during the anni di piombo.  The "Third Position" reflected the group's goal of grounding a society in neither capitalism nor socialism--hence a "third" position--based on the ideas of Julius Evola.  The main ideas, which seem straight out of 1920s Fascism--are nationalism, tradition, militarism, and opposition to parliamentary government.  The Third Position now has a theme song, "Inno della terza posizione"/Hymn of the Third Position (2014), which you can listen to online--if you can stand it.  You can learn more about the "terza posizione" on Wikipedia, in English.

"Passi securi, passi pesanti e lenti"/Sure steps, heavy and slow.  This slogan suggests that the group will move in a gradual but determined way toward its goal.  We also have a signature: the LS - Lotta Studentesca (Student Struggle), a right-wing organization and one of the "Eredi di terza posizione" [see just above], this one focused on changes in the educational system. Appropriately, we found this grafitti on a school building. Perhaps this, too, is from a popular song. 

"Arma la tua anima"/Arm your Soul/Arm your Spirit.  We're not entirely sure what this means, though the schematic fasci at the right of the slogan mark it as right wing.  Also, it's likely from the right because that side seems particularly interesting in being armed.  We think it means "Toughen Up."  Note, too, that around the fasci are two letters--B and S--likely standing for Blocco

Studentesco (Student Bloc), a ring-wing organization similar to the Lotta Studentesca.  Those enamored with this organization can purchase a T-shirt bearing the words "Arma la tua anima," along with the words "absentia lunae."  This phrase is the name of an affiliated black metal band, whose website describes its "lyrical themes" as "negativity, emptiness, sadness"; its enemy as "modern scum"; and its goal as "resistance against the modern world."  Very earnest.   


"Valentino presente."  We haven't been able to pin down who Valentino is or was.  But from past experience we do know that the word "presente" (Present) means that Valentino is dead--likely some time ago, and likely as a consequence of his commitment to the values and goals of the right.  (We first saw the word "presente" used in this way on a poster in the Tuscolano zone, paying tribute to 3 young rightists killed there in 1978).  To say "Valentino presente" is to say that Valentino is alive in the hearts and minds of those committed to the cause.  The word was used by the Fascists in reference to Italian soldiers killed in the Great War. 

Bill