Let’s Imagine It, Together!

Notes on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Influences on the Global Contemporary Art World

Hou Hanru Artistic Director, Fondazione MAXXI

At any rate, as for me, should that interest the reader, let it be clearly understood. I would give the entire Montedison, even though it be a multinational company, for a firefly.1

Pier Paolo Pasolini

In spite of his relatively limited direct contact with the visual art world during his lifetime, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s work, as well as his persona as an intellectual icon, has had considerable influence on today’s art community. Rome has a long history of international academies hosting artists in residence. Hundreds of international artists have come here to research and develop their work in the eternal city, the capital of “Western civilization.” Among them, a large number have focused on researching Pasolini’s life and work, already the stuff of contemporary legend. Meanwhile, the Italian art world remains perpetually engaged with reviving Pasolini’s legacy. Beyond the Roman and Italian contexts, his literature and film works, as well as political opinions, have been widely echoed by generations of artists across the world. Today, with the coming of the centenary of his birth, Pier Paolo Pasolini, as an iconic symbol of critical thinking and rebellious vox populi (without vox Dei, of course), has become increasingly venerated and followed by young artists. Although some works on Pasolini may be seen as “exotic” because they mainly reveal an interest in exploring the famously (sometimes even notoriously) controversial anecdotes of his life (and death), many others, however, succeed in exploring spiritual, intellectual, and political connections with his legacy in more essential and philosophical ways, at once distant and intimate. This does not only prolong the “myth” of Pier Paolo Pasolini, but also enduringly revives the real significance of his artistic and political undertakings. For the last four decades, a certain form of long-lasting interplay between the spirit, or the “specter,” of Pasolini and living artists has been unfolding, “haunting” like a realm of fantasy, or a real “hauntology,” energizing all sorts of creative minds.