The Pleasures of Tor Pignattara: A Gallery, an Acqueduct, Wall Art, Social Commentary

Tor Pignattara is one of our favorite off-the-beaten-path places.  Among its many pleasures, it's the site of Wunderkammern, among Rome's best small galleries.  One evening in mid-April, having enjoyed an opening at the gallery, we headed east, across Via Tor Pignattara, to an area of the community that we hadn't been before.

We were attracted by a powerful expanse of the Acquedotto Alessandrina, which runs more or less east and west here, and is the northern boundary of a modest park--Parco Alessandrino--which on this warm Friday was full of families watching their children play.

Turning south, and just beyond the park proper, we came upon what seemed to be a community center with a paved courtyard, populated by kids kicking soccer balls and carousing.

The courtyard was handsomely decorated with murals.  One was dedicated to Tor Pignattara, another to Quadraro, a neighborhood to the south--apparently an effort to given equal time to the two major user groups.  A third mural offered portraits of young men of some stature locally.

A bit of graffiti--of the scrawled, ugly sort we wish there were less of--nonetheless had an interesting message: "Pensare e' Gratis": Thinking is Free.

At the end of the paved playground was another piece of non-sanctioned work, a three-line effort at social commentary:

il prete non ti tocca                      the priest doesn't touch you
la guardia non uccide                   the police don't kill
io non sto scrivendo                     I'm not writing

Bill

Other RST posts on Tor Pignattara (besides the 2 linked above):
a restaurant: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2016/01/rsts-favorite-2015-rome-restaurants-ie.html
a book: http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2015/04/global-rome-changing-faces-of-eternal.html
and 3 street artists:
http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2013/12/c215-street-art-caravaggio-in-rome.html
http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2015/05/jef-aerosol-pioneer-street-artist.html
http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2015/11/with-pasolini-its-all-about-body.html

RST's Favorite 2015 Rome Restaurants - i.e., Trattorie

The bustling front dining room at Betto e Mary; not sure about the stuffed animal cow and her scarf.  Perhaps someone
will come forth with an explanation.  And the server?  She's the talking menu.

With the usual caveat that we are not foodies, we are taking a break from all that architecture to provide notes on places in Rome where we enjoyed eating this past year.  RST likes to graze, we must admit.  We like small plates; we don't like to be fussed over.  So if you are into high-tone culinary experiences, you probably should not read on (as you also can deduce from the photo above).  But if you like a casual meal, with no or few tourists around, and excellent classic Roman dishes, check out the 3 trattorie below - in a variety of neighborhoods: Monteverde Vecchio, Flaminio, and Tor Pignattara.  We'll take on 4 even more casual places in a subsequent post.

In a covered outside dining area at Betto e Mary - where you
are likely to sit without a reservation (and it's very pleasant).

We've previously mentioned Betto e Mary in the Tor Pignattara neighborhood.  We've enjoyed it partly because it's close to one of our favorite galleries, Wunderkammern.  And the area is known for high-quality wall art. The walk from Wunderkammern to the restaurant will give you a great sampling of that art (check out the StreetArtRoma app - the app is much better than the Web site - for excellent directions).

For those in search of a non-tourist experience, you can't do better than Betto e Mary.  I can't recall how we came to know about it, because you won't find it easily.  It does have many (high) ratings on Yelp and TripAdvisor (the latter spells the name incorrectly) which I checked after we'd been there a couple times.  And I only found out from reading an article in Men's Journal that it's considered a "communist" restaurant (that means apparently only that it's for locals, not businessmen).

Our 26 Euro bill at Betto e Mary was so low,
 we took a photo of it.  And when we paid it,
someone rang a bell and shouted
 "Mancia! mancia!" (tip! tip!)

You probably need a bit of Italian to get by, or be willing to take your chances on, e.g., horsemeat, innards.  The available dishes are described to you by your server; that's it. You can take a look at the (Italian) Facebook page for photos of some of the offerings.  To get to the restaurant, take the #1 tram from the side of Termini or from Porta Maggiore to either the Filarete or Tor Pignattara stop and follow a map or gps from there - it's only a couple blocks.  DON'T follow the Men's Journal advice to take the Metro to Villa Medici and ask! And, although not far from Pigneto, Betto e Mary is not really in Pigneto.  Address: Via dei Savorgnan, 99, 00176 Rome; tel. 0664771096.  I also don't think the open and closing hours are accurate in Men's Journal.

Early in the evening at Lo Sgobbone, before it filled up.

The outside tables are popular at Lo Sgobbone.

Second up, Lo Sgobbone, in our Flaminio neighborhood last year. As I said in my review on TripAdviser, I had to be talked into going in the first place, because the outside awning was so dirty, I didn't trust it. But Bill prevailed, and he was right. Terrific (clean inside) local trattoria, and few tourists. This restaurant isn't too far from MAXXI or from Foro Italico, if you are doing either of those sites. Lo Sgobbone features the usual Italian dishes - we had an excellent spaghetti (billed as tagliolini but it was spaghetti) with fresh artichokes...gotta keep eating them as long as they are in season, and a very good roast veal - large portions. I also ordered the fresh asparagus "a piacere" - prepared as I wished, and I wished with butter and parmesan.  A delicious large plateful was $10 and worth it.  The house white is from Pitigliano in SE Tuscany - an area we love - and perfectly serviceable.  You are given a 1 liter bottle and you pay for "a consumiano" - what you consume.

The awning, Dianne's objection, looks better at night.

We were too full to try the desserts, but they looked terrific, and the Italians around us were not holding back.  For us, this is so much better than Anthony Bourdain's Cacio e Pepe in Prati, or Katie Parla's favorite Cesare al Casaletto (sorry, Katie, usually we think you are spot on and we recommend you every time, but we can't agree on this one).  Bill is loathe to check any other reviews before we go to a restaurant, and he's often proven right - they lead one astray.  I checked Lo Sgobbone only after we went, assuming no one had discovered it, and it shows up with excellent ratings on both Yelp and TripAdviser.  Lo Sgobbone, btw, appears to mean a hard worker, but with a negative connotation (leave it to the Italians!). Via dei Podesti, 10 (between the Lungotevere Flaminio and viale Pinturicchio; near Ponte della Musica), tel: 06 3232994.  And nice photos on the Italian Facebook page.

Third, Tutto Qua!, in the Monteverde Vecchio neighborhood.  This is tinier than the two trattorie above, and more upscale in cuisine and price, but still reasonable.  It's not your classic Italian trattoria, in other words, but it usually has several classics on the menu.  I love the atmosphere, the creative menu, and the presentation.  The wine list is also good, especially for such a small spot.  You can see more photos on Tutto Qua!'s (Italian) Web site and  Facebook.  It's much praised on TripAdvisor (Yelp hasn't discovered it yet).  One drawback: you usually need a reservation.  Our phone number was taken down incorrectly and when the owner couldn't reach us the day before, he cancelled our reservation. So be careful when you reserve a table.  A few outside tables in season, as well (also subject to reservations).  Via Barrilli 66 (via Barrilli turns into via Carini), not far from Il Vascello Theater. tel: 06 580 3649.

Outside, looking in, at Tutto Qua! in Monteverde Vecchio.

We didn't include RST's favorite restaurant in Rome, Mithos, La taverna dell'allegria, because we've written about it many times.  Check out the Facebook site  to see if you can stay away.

And now it's time for some Buffalo wings (when in Buffalo we live 3 blocks from where they were first concocted - Frank and Teresa's Anchor Bar).

Dianne

Modernist Treasure, or Monstrosity? Via Teano 223, Roma

We were somewhere in the Rome countryside, slogging our way toward the new Teano Metro station--our goal was to walk all the new ones in one outing--when we saw a huge, and we would say unique, building rise up before us.  Modernist treasure or monstrosity?  And what was inside?

School entrance

At one entrance, we learned from signage that at least part of the building housed a technical high school.  The IISS Di Vittorio-Lattanzio opened there, we learned later, in 2000.  (Lattanzio is an Italian family name, apparently a revival of the Latin name Lactantius, from Lactans, for the Roman god of vegetation.  Like you really needed to know that.  However,  the building is sometimes referred to as the Palazzo del'ex lattanzio, which strongly suggests that a lattanzio is, indeed, something.  The word isn't in our dictionary, but we're guessing it's an ex-cannery).




The other side of the round part of the building has been visited frequently by graffiti artists. When we walked through a large, open gate to get a better look, a guard indicated we had entered prohibited territory, adding, in response to our query, that parts of the building were used for storage.

That's the guard who told us to leave.

Indeed, the building, constructed between 1958 and 1961, was built for and originally housed a warehouse for the Teatro dell'Opera--that is, space for opera costumes and scenery--complete with a system of ramps.  In the late 1960s, elements of it (likely the square elements) were adapted for use as a school.  In the 1970s, the upper floors housed "sfratti"--that is, people evicted from their homes or apartments.

Iacurci's "Zero Infinito"

The flat, eastern end of the building features an enormous piece of street art by Agostino Iacurci.  It
was completed in 2013 with the permission (and perhaps the financial support) of the local government, Rome's 5th Municipio, and under the auspices of the Wunderkammern gallery, an avant-garde art space located in Tor Pignattara.  It's titled "Zero Infinito."

The Teano metro station is now open, so the l'ex lattanzio is easily accessible.  Don't miss it!  Via Teano 223.

Bill

New Teano metro station. Shades of Saarinen.

Murales Italian Style: Rome's Street Art Brought to You by Wunderkammern

Russian artist Alexey Luka painting his  multi-story work in Torpignattara, thanks to Wunderkammern and the Russian Embassy. See the finished work, below.

By Spanish artist Escif, "The Right Ear."
Just a great painting, building-high, on the proper
side of the building too.

Wandering the streets of the near-in 'suburb' of Torpignattara, as we have many times, we are constantly delighted by the street art that seems to mysteriously appear where one least expects it.  Most of this street art consists of large works sponsored by the trendy, yet earnest Wunderkammern Gallery, located in the heart of Torpignattara.

The professionally executed 'murales', as the Italians call large wall paintings, stand in contrast to the neighborhood's historical reputation as an impoverished hotbed of crime and, now, the media claims, degraded by an influx of immigrants, Bangladeshi in particular.  

At opening for 2501 (aka Jacopo Ceccarelli) in Wunderkammern's
Torpignattara gallery.

Torpignattara indeed is changing, and rapidly.  An industrial and working-class neighborhood once filled with immigrants from Italy's Southern and Central areas, Torpignattara's population started to decline in the 1980s due to poor housing and high crime rates - until the Bangladeshi (now numbering 5,000) and other immigrants moved in. 

The area has the lowest percentage of college graduates of any in Rome, and the exodus of Italians preceded the influx of international immigrants.  But residents remain unrealistically nostalgic about the "old" Torpignattara, before part of it became "Banglatown." Sociologists describe it as a "re-urbanization," rather than a "gentrification."  There is less crime now than before the Bangladeshi moved in. One could even say it is being cleaned up by the immigrants.  It is an area that continues to be separated socially into different districts.  We found the Bangladeshi merchants concentrated in one section. Another section is the rapidly gentrifying - in the true sense of the word:  Pigneto.  

So how to explain these gorgeous paintings?  They are almost all the result of the intervention by Wunderkammern, which 7 years ago located its gallery here, moving from the charming medieval town of Spello, just south of Assisi in Umbria.  

Change seems to go with the territory for Wunderkammern.  The German word refers to the Victorian "cabinet of wonders," and Wunderkammern is such a cabinet, but one going well beyond its "cabinet doors."  It's a first- rate gallery with artists' works that sell into the 6-figures of Euros.  So it could be located in the center, it could ignore the streets outside its doors. In fact, it does the opposite.

Jef Aerosol's "Tom," near Wunderkammern's gallery space.

As Co-Director Giuseppe Pizzuti told us, "We usually ask artists that we work with and that we invite for a show to Rome to leave a sign of their staying and to realize an outdoor work." Wunderkammern selects the sites.  Pizzuti continues, "Usually we are inspired by outdoor spaces that we see while riding the streets of our neighborhood. Whenever we find a wall that is inspiring for us, we try to obtain an authorization from the people living in that building."  I asked him how receptive the building owners are to the request.  "At the beginning it was not always so easy," Pizzuti said.  "Right now people are calling us to 'offer' their walls to us to have our artists work on them." 

Found this one just walking around Torpignattara,
By Parisian artist Ludo, untitled.  

Of course the 'murales' in Torpignattara can be viewed simply as part of a world-wide trend.  Berlin, London, Los Angeles - all cities famous for their street art.  Torpignattara's 'murales' differ from the concentration of murales in the neighborhoods of San Basilio and Tor Marancia, where large blocks of 8-10 story public housing buildings have created vast 'canvasses' for multiple works close together.  Hitness did 6 of these facades in San Basilio and Tor Marancia's housing project features about a dozen works from international artists, all done in 2015.  By contrast, Torpignattara's walls are varied.  There's no single big block of public housing featuring facades like those in San Basilio and Tor Marancia.  As the neighborhood is described in the book Global Rome, the housing is of varied ages and types, from farmhouses dating from the "agro Romano" to some multi-story block housing.  As a result, the works are more surprising and mysterious to the walker.  And they come in all different sizes.

A C215  (French) work next to the bar across from
Wunderkammern's gallery.

Agostino Iacurci, Clear Sky on the Pink House

One can see Wunderkammern's intervention as changing part of the fabric of this community, most recently under some siege from racists who would limit the percentage of children in the schools whose heritage is non-Italian - even if those children were born in Italy and speak only Italian.

Luka's finished work (at dusk; so the colors aren't true in this photo).
When we were here, there were Rom around having collected detritus and
headed back to, we assume, their camps in cars and with their kids' bikes.

Besides a trip to Wunderkammern, which we highly recommend, one can check out the street art with the new app, streetartroma. We don't recommend the city's tourist map, yes, of street art; it's close to unintelligible.

We do recommend Jessica Stewart's book: Street Art Stories ROMA.

Wunderkammern: 124 via Gabrio Serbelloni.  From Termini, the 105 bus or the tram on via G. Giolitti. tel. Tel: +39 - 0645435662
Cell: +39 - 3498112973 

email:  wunderkammern@wunderkammern.net

A stupendous piece by Nicola Verlato, born in Verona, now from Los Angeles.
It portrays Pierpaolo Pasolini's death.  That's Petrarch and Ezra Pound below (we
needed the explanation from the streetartroma app).  This does not appear to have
been sponsored by Wunderkammern, but clearly the location and its existence
owe much to the gallery.

Generally open Wednesdays to Saturdays 5 - 8 p.m., when there is an exhibit, or by appointment. .  Check the Web site.  Current exhibit is on until 25 July, 2015.

An added attraction is the osteria, Betto e Mary, a few blocks
from Wunderkammern.  One of the cheapest, and most authentic, Roman
trattorie - complete with any kind of animal innards cooked any way
you want them.  This is just one of their several large spaces.
via dei Savorgnam, 99. +39 06 6477 1096.

Jef Aerosol: Pioneer Street Artist

One of the artist's signature works--a lovely example of "The Sitting Kid."  This one is on the back patio of  Wunderkammern  gallery, Torpignattara.  

Torpignattara

Jef Aerosol is the pen (one should say "aerosol") name of Jean-Francois Perry, one of our favorite urban street artists, now with a significant body of Rome work.  Sometimes referred to as the "French Banksy," Aerosol often paints celebrities--Presley, Ghandi, Dylan, and others--but we were attracted to another side of his work, the presentations of ordinary people--kids, beggars, older folks--and the way he invests these people with attitudes and emotions.

Torpignattara

Born in 1957 in Nantes, France, Aerosol came to street art in the early 1980s, and is self-taught.  He recalls having been influenced by the "scene" in 1960s London, where he spent a month each year vacationing: Twiggy, the British musical scene, the fashions of Carnaby Street.  Also influential were 1970s underground rock bands.  He has always been much taken with eyes; "a death," he has said, "is a body whose gaze has been turned off."

"The Sitting Kid," Hollywood Blvd.

Aerosol's cutting and spraying work can be found on walls in many major cities, including Los Angeles (Hollywood is the site of  what is apparently the earliest version of his signature work, "The Sitting Kid"), Tokyo, Dublin, Chicago, Palermo and, since 2014, Rome, where his work was first presented at Torpignattara's Wunderkammern gallery--a favorite art space of ours--in May of that year.


A red arrow appears on most of his creations. 

Bill

Another "The Sitting Kid," Torpignattara.  Red butterflies, but no red arrow, apparently.