Polignano a Mare's Pino Pascali Museum Foundation, the virtuosity of hospitality

June seven years ago saw the inauguration of the current home of the most active and lively center for stable contemporary art in Apulia: the one named since 1998 after Pino Pascali (Bari, 1935 - Rome, 1968) in Polignano a Mare, the city of origin of the artist’s family, already known for its generous scenic beauty and for being the birthplace, moreover, of Domenico Modugno.

Founded twenty-one years ago, the municipal museum since 2010 has become a Foundation and since 2012, precisely, it takes its place in a restored and beautifully optimized former slaughterhouse, in an already evocative area in itself, the Apulian coast of the province of Bari overlooking the Adriatic Sea.

A museum with a sea view, then, that addresses the international horizon of the art system, an institutional reference for the knowledge, memory and promotion of Pascali’s artistic figure and a caretaker container of works by contemporary artists whose works can be in dialogue with those of the protagonist.

The headquarters of the Pino Pascali Museum Foundation on the southern waterfront of Polignano a Mare.

The core space of the museum. Ph. Credit Marino Colucci

It must be said that among the first initiatives in his memory was already, in the same year of his death, the establishment in the city of a civic gallery in his name, and that from the following year a ’Pino Pascali’ Prize for contemporary art assigned to relevant figures in the artistic-critical field was established.

So that the valorization of Pascali’s corpus goes on in Polignano in parallel with the preservation that the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome, the MoMa in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Pompidou in Paris... up to the Mumok in Vienna or the Museum of Modern Art in Osaka, among others, guarantee of some of his works.

The substantial collection-archive permanently at the museum since 1998 has consisted primarily of the “unwitting” legacy left by the artist, collected by the family upon his death, and donations and acquisitions, obtained over time in co-partnership with the region and the municipality. These are works that testify to the eclecticism of the graphic designer Pascali, the set designer Pascali, sculptor, and performer who, while never mentioning the territory, his childhood and adolescence in Puglia, have a straightforward “Mediterranean matrix,” later declined by the international artistic influences he had the opportunity to absorb in Rome in the 1950s and the brilliant 1960s.

From his advertising and television experiences, representative of the period in association with Lodolo Film and working for Rai, to his later sculptural and installation experiments, in relationship with galleries, spaces and important appointments of the official art system that was consecrating him before that fateful 1968. Testimonies, with graphic projects, films, installations, sketches, visual notes and personal objects that reconstruct the history and vitality of the Pascali man and through which one can trace the thematic nodes of his flourishing, if brief, career.

Marco Giusti, Pino Pascali or the Transformations of the Serpent (2003; still from film produced by Rai 3)

Likewise, the museum collection, which is alive, mobile and constantly enriching, continues to attract donations and new acquisitions prepared by the Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali (awarded in 2013 as Italy’s Best Contemporary Art Foundation). It is just last year in fact the introduction of a collection of unpublished photographs and recently restored original advertising videos.

Also in 2018, on the 50th anniversary of his death, the introduction of the iconic Five Bristle Worms and a Cocoon (1968) into the collection as well. And this passage introduces the link with the man who was its “owner,” Fabio Sargentini (Rome, 1939) of Rome’s L’Attico Gallery, a leading international personality at the center of an ongoing tribute exhibition at the museum.

Exchanges, in fact, with other public and private institutions (such as the Pinacoteca della Città Metropolitana di Bari) as well as collectors, ensure that his production is known or in some cases rediscovered. Fundamental to the conservation and commemorative process are contributions to the restoration of some works or the reconstruction of others based on historic original drawings.

Pino Pascali, Five Bristleworms and a Cocoon (1968; acrylic bristleworms on metal frame)

Until June 16, 2019, it was said, it is possible to visit the exhibition My Way - Installation with Figures, conceived precisely by Sargentini, which leads back to that decisive tranche de vie that saw together in the stable of L’Attico, Pascali with Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Simone Forti, Robert Smithson, Gino De Dominicis and Mario Merz, here symbolically reunited in an evocative life-size photographic installation around the “master of the house,” which is placed at the center of a series of images of their most significant actions of the years 1968-1970.

The exhibition came about because Sargentini was awarded the Pino Pascali XXI Prize and statutorily, and as is customary, the annual winner of the prize is dedicated a solo exhibition in the heart of the museum.

From My Way, Installation with figures by Fabio Sargentini - Pascali Prize XXI edition.

Since the official opening of the Pino Pascali with the artistic direction of Rosalba Branà this award has once again become an interesting occasion for authors and the public. A jury elected from edition to edition recognizes value to excellent actors of the scene, awarding one of their works and acquiring it in the permanent, then exhibited in the basement of the building. It is therefore an “observatory” on the currents of theory and practice of visual and performing arts, both Apulian, wanting to zoom in on the regional scene, as well as global ester, with a telescopic gaze across borders. The precious “catalog” of the entire heritage can be said to be open, also because the absorption is in progress. Of these days the announcement concerning the granting on loan for use by the artist and collector Lino Sivilli (Bitetto, 1942) of the original drawing Progetto per Balena (1966).

Pino Pascali, Project for Whale (1966). The autographed project depicts the detailed stages of making one of his large faux sculptures using the ribbed canvas technique.

At the same time, the building’s Project Room is a space from time to time devoted to special activities and focuses on new artists involved in Pascali’s house. As in the case of LIUBA (Milan, 1971) who has been working with performance, video art and interactive and participatory projects since 1992, invited to present in this context the solo exhibition You’re Welcome curated by Giusy Petruzzelli. Until July 21, it will be possible to see brought together her entire body of work related to the theme of welcome. Exhibited together are photos, videos and documents from some of his performances, Refugee Welcome (2013-2015), from the series With no time (2015) and You’re Out! (2014-16), the latter re-purposed site-specific in Polignano for the occasion of the June 7 opening, jointly with Welcome Here. It is a remarkable reflection on one of the central nodes of “Mediterranean-ness,” the refugee crisis, and is offered as an invitation addressed to the community (thanks to the synergy with the local entities of SPRAR, Sistema di protezione per richiedenti asilo e rifugiati)as well as an articulated art project, presented by Galleria Marconi of Monsanpolo del Tronto (Ascoli Piceno) in collaboration with CRAC - Chiara Ronchini Arte Contemporanea.

LIUBA, With No Time #1 (2015-2016; performance installation photography, carpet)

This proposal has at its base an obvious and virtuous comparison with some Pascalian peculiarities, starting from the noted multimedia experimentation and the high rate of performativity.

Well, we could discern a connoted and welcoming “Mediterranean matrix” therefore also in this way in which the Foundation hosts exhibition routes, popular initiatives and temporary exhibitions, which are developed immediately next to Pascali’s core.

But in addition to welcoming on site, the museum makes itself welcome. As in the case of the two participations in the collateral events of La Biennale Arte di Venezia, in the last 2011 and particularly in this 2019, with a wide and highly curated retrospective by Antonio Frugis and Roberto Lacarbonara, set in Venice in Palazzo Cavanis that opens to the public of exhibitions for the first time just with Pino Pascali.

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