In conjunction with The Museum of Modern Art's retrospective of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films, MoMA PS1 presents Teorema (1968), Medea (1969), and Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975) as continuous cinematic installations throughout the exhibition's entirety, during regular MoMA PS1 museum hours.
The masterful and provocative imagery of Pasolini's films is derisory in scope and genre, and these three demonstrate powerfully different treatments of the medium. Pasolini's unerring eye for composition and tone reveals the artist's conflicting passion for modernity, religion, history, and sexuality, and proves the virtuosity of the director not just as a filmmaker but also as a visionary whose life and work embody the social upheavals of the time.
A controversial public figure who was openly gay and avowedly communist, Pasolini (1922-1975) was a poet, writer, political pundit, and filmmaker who experimented with almost every medium to criticize and understand his time. Incriminated more than thirty times for his writings and films, Pasolini endured frequent and harsh censure from numerous cultural sectors. He was mysteriously murdered in November of 1975, in Rome, months before the delayed release of Salò, in January of 1976.
Exhibiting the films as immersive installations celebrates Pasolini's vital contributions to postwar artistic practice, and brings the works to a larger, intergenerational audience. Original theatrical posters for the films from international debuts will be on view, as well as an open reading room that brings together Pasolini's distinguished works as a poet and writer.
Co-produced by The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Luce Cinecittà, Rome.
The exhibition is organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art, and by Camilla Cormanni and Paola Ruggiero, Luce Cinecittà; with Roberto Chiesi, Cineteca di Bologna; Fondo Pier Paolo Pasolini, Bologna; and Graziella Chiarcossi. Presented in association with the Ministry of Culture of Italy. Special thanks to The Italian Cultural Institute, New York.