The Mural on Scalo San Lorenzo: Reading the Politics of the Neighborhood

 

Of San Lorenzo's many murals, none captures the community's history of in-your-face, leftist politics--at one time the product of the neighborhood's working class, now of a newer population of university students--than the street-level monster on Scalo San Lorenzo. The street can be dark and foreboding, having been victimized by a 1960-era elevated highway running down its center, but it was central to the area's development and character. To the south and east lie a maze of railroad tracks that at one time were crucial to the area's commercial development; Scalo, a word that defies precise definition, has some relationship to loading and unloading--it's likely related to the English word, "scale." 

About fifty feet long and accomplished mostly in grey tones, the mural is a complex political statement of the ideas that currently motivate San Lorenzo's residents, generally, and particularly those in the social space and organization that occupies the space at Scalo San Lorenzo, #33, behind the mural and was, apparently, responsible for it: COMMUNIA. Created a few years ago, COMMUNIA (see below the photo of the bus in the mural) is a feminist movement, mutual assistance organization, and a laboratory for experimenting with modes of production, and culture, that lie outside the marketplace. 

As a feminist movement, it works against workplace harassment (le molestie) and other injustices; the driver of the #19 bus (today, replacing the tram on via dei Reti while work is done on the tracks far away in Parioli, it is central to the area's transportation network) is a woman with fist raised (looking a bit like the Statue of Liberty), but it's noteworthy that the mural does not attack patriarchy or men in general. The section of the mural at right foregrounds the role of women and the community's need for green space and public services. I have not been able to figure out who L. Blissett was or is. 

[Nota bene: an anonymous reader explained that L. Blissett was Luther Blissett, a "multiple use name" shared by artists and activists in Europe and elsewhere since 1994. That is, there is no individual artist named Luther Blissett. He (named after a soccer player) is a community "myth" and a community project. For more--much more--see the entry "Luther Blissett" in Wikipedia, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Blissett_(pseudonym).]

Among the issues the mural raises are gentrification and the proliferation of Airbnbs that have raised rents and driven out residents, especially older ones ("poor people leave quietly," says the mural).

Increasingly, the area is unable to support traditional business; there is no classic Roman deli, no dedicated bakery (although there is one attached to a bar), only two orto-fruttas (fruits and vegetables) and one 72-year-old butcher with a very limited array of meats.

The source of the problem, the mural tells us, is money ("Rich Uncle" Pennybags, the figure from the game Monopoly) and developers, represented here by grotesque machinery, part metal/part skeletal animal. "Fight power not people," is the phrase on the front of the bus (photo showing bus, above). 

San Lorenzo values equality. OMNIA SUNT COMMUNIA, a well-known phrase from the Latin, translates as "all things are to be held in common." And it values inclusivity: "No Borders"/"A San Lorenzo Nessuno E' Un Straniero" [at San Lorenzo, no one is a stranger]. 

The mural also includes at least two aspects of the community's physical presence: the Sopra-Elevata (the elevated highway that runs down Scalo San Lorenzo) and the neighborhood's graffiti, represented here in the signature of GECO (high up on the mural) and the painter Hogre.

Bill 

 

Barbie Has No Knees (and Superman has no genitals): Reflecting on the historical significance of the iconic doll through an exhibit at the Vittoriano

With Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" scheduled to open tonight in theaters, well, everywhere, we are re-posting Bill's 2016 post below, which is chock-full of historical cultural analysis as well as photos of some of the many Barbies we saw at the exhibit. Yeah, go to Rome and see Barbies! We loved it. (Review here: https://www.2filmcritics.com/post/barbie)

Sign for the Barbie exhibit in the Vittoriano - which features a permanent exhibit of The Risorgimento -
Italy's battle for statehood.  Interesting contrast of Barbie and Garibaldi.

60s Barbie, Barnaby Street look

It was 1959 when the first Barbie appeared.  A bit late, it would seem, to catch the wave of conservatism, conformity and consensus that hung over the American nation through much of the postwar era.  When Barbie went on sale, the civil rights movement was well under way, with lunch-counter sit-ins to begin in 1960.  Just two years later, Tom Hayden launched the student protest movement with the Port Huron Statement and Betty Friedan rang the opening bell for the latest version of feminism with her book, The Feminine Mystique.  By 1965 U.S. bombers were pounding North Vietnam.  Barbie should never have survived "the '60s."  But she did. The "Barbie" exhibit at Rome's Complesso del Vittoriano provides some explanations for Barbie's longevity.  One is that Barbie was a well-made and beautifully dressed creature, her every incarnation

a fine-tuned fashion statement.  Having never had a Barbie (I was 16 when she made her debut, and a boy), and having decided that the exhibit was one I hardly cared to see, I was impressed--astounded even--at the "look" of the hundreds of Barbies on display: style, color, elegance, precision, all in abundance.

Right, Barbie as bullfighter.  Left,
hipster exec

Clearly, too, Barbie was flexible, especially in relationship to the burgeoning feminist movement. Barbie could be teen model, a housewife and homemaker, or a stewardess, but over the years she tracked American women as they took on a wider variety of occupations and pursuits--some 180 occupations in all.  Barbie became a pilot, a no-nonsense professional, an astronaut, an eco-friendly architect, a race car driver, a hard rock musician, even a bullfighter, albeit a stylish one.














Barbie's facial expression changed, too, perhaps most famously in the 1970s, when Barbie came to look a bit like Farrah Fawcett, the star of the popular TV series, Charlie's Angels.

Barbie as Hitchcock's Tippi, attacked
by birds

Other Barbies were modeled after celebrities. among them Twiggy, Audrey Hepburn, Madonna, Tippi Hedren (in Hitchcock's The Birds), Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, and Elvis, Barbie could be the Statue of Liberty, too.

And after 1980, Barbie's look had much to do with multiculturalism and globalization. (See the African Barbie at the end of this post). Even so, the curators of the exhibit go too far in claiming that Barbie was on the cutting edge of political and social change. The first black Barbie appeared in 1980, 12 years after the March on Washington, 16 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited racial discrimination in public accommodations such as restaurants and hotels, and 26 years after the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional.  In the racial arena, at least, Barbie was a follower, not a leader.


Nonetheless, as a cultural historian, I enjoyed the curators' efforts to link the evolving Barbie with historical movements and trends, from feminism to globalization to the emergence of a culture of celebrity. However, I must admit that my first reaction to Barbie had to do with her physique, and not just her thin-ness.  Indeed, my first thought--and first words in the exhibit--was "Barbie has no knees."  It occurred to me, then, that Barbie was knee-less because the knee is the least attractive part of the leg; knees have bumps and lumps and stick out here and there.

interrupting the attractive flow of the woman's leg from thigh to calf to ankle (admittedly, also somewhat knobby--as it turns out, Barbie doesn't have ankles, either).











No genitals.  Could be model for
Superman Barbie

I'm writing this today because this morning's New York Times carried an obituary for Noel Neill, the actress who played Lois Lane on the Adventures of Superman TV series.  In the accompanying photo, Superman (Steve Reeves) demonstrates his strength by holding Miss Lane off the ground with one arm.  Then I noticed that Superman has no genitals.  


Bill

The exhibit closes October 10.  It's not cheap: Euro 12 or, if you qualify for a reduction, Euro 10.  Most of the hundreds of Barbies in the exhibition come from 2 major Italian collections.

Women with Guns: Rome's New Feminism

Saudi Arabia has just labeled feminism, along with homosexuality and something else I can't recall, an "extremism."  Having survived the American 1970s as a male, I can see their point. I was forced to learn to cook!

But that was almost 50 years ago, and I wasn't prepared for the hostile, militant feminism I found on the walls of Rome in the Spring of 2019.  I should qualify the "walls of Rome" reference in the last sentence.  Most of the aggressive feminist images and slogans I found were not in "Rome," as if they were everywhere in Rome, but in certain areas of the city--especially Pigneto, but a few other places as well.

Here we go.

You may have seen this one; it's been on the RST Facebook site.  "Monogamy is the New Fascism." It's in English, so maybe it doesn't count.

This one's a stencil.  While the message seems aggressive, it's also sensible:  "Neither forced maternity nor imposed sterility."

The next one's more obviously aggressive, yet it's also vague about what it's advocating:  "We're multiplying the feminist rage."  Followed by the standard feminist symbol - in triplicate.

"Addio al patriarcato"--a reasonable translation would be "Goodbye Patriarchy."  Who could disagree with that?  The symbol here combines feminism with anarchy.  Anarcho-Feminism.

Below: "Complicit with the women who resist and kill the aggressors." That's strong.

Now we're into visuals.  Many of these fall into the "women with..." category.

As in, below, "Woman with a Drill" (and small wrench).  One could think of this as something like Rosie the Riveter, or....?    From Ostiense.

Below, a piece of wall art.  I tried to translate "Tommy gani [or cani?] sciorti" and could not.  This is "woman with dagger as hand":

Then there's "woman with dynamite" (upper poster):

And "women with guns."  Four of the figures in the poster below are women, and three of them have guns. The rally of the New Resistances was to take place in Casal Bertone--a community just north of Pigneto.

The following poster invokes the Partisans of the 1940s, and in that sense the woman with a gun is justified.  But it also says "oggi antifascisti" (today [we are] antifascists]), and it's not so clear that anti-fascism requires women (or anyone) carrying weapons:

This poster announces a "sciopero globale transfeminista"--"a global strike of transfeminists," I guess.  The woman is masked and ready for street combat.

Two more.  The first one, below, was found in Pigneto and starts with "Gender violence also involves (or concerns) you." "La Casa delle Donne Lucha y Siesta" ("Women's House - Fight and Nap") is a self-run women's organization fighting violence against women, located in the Tuscolano quartiere. Again, the image has a Rosie-the- Riveter quality, but it's more aggressive than welcoming.

And finally, from Ostiense. Here, less aggressive than anxious? (For more on the F word in Rome, see here.)

Bill
Author of "Patty's Got a Gun: Patricia Hearst in 1970s America."

Rome's Alice Pasquini: Street Art Feminism, and Beyond

Closed newspaper kiosk, Piazza Mancini, Flaminio 

It's not easy to find information about Rome-based street artist Alice Pasquini.  What's available on the internet seems to come mostly from her website--valuable in its way, but limited and perhaps misleading.  Featured prominently on that website are the words "a visual artist who works as an illustrator, set designer and painter," but one searches in vain for evidence of her work as a set designer, and it's not clear where she's worked as an illustrator--unless she's referring here to her smaller works of street art.  She's essentially a painter, sometimes a stenciller.  Although her website, and other accounts derived from it, give her name as Alice and AliCè, her work is commonly signed Alice (pronounced Ah-lee-chay in Italian; hence the AliCè may be more representative, although in Italian the accent is on the second syllable).

Portrait of Alice by C215

What is clear is that she's prolific.  At age 35 (born 1980--even that was hard to find), she's worked as a street artist in dozens of major cities, including London, Sydney, New York, Barcelona, Saigon and, of course, Rome.

Pasquini grew up in Rome Prati quartiere, immersed in the '90s hip-hop scene, where she discovered SprayLiz--a comic book heroine whose specialty was political graffiti. Inspired, she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, took some coursework in animation in Madrid (where she earned an MA in Critical Arts Studies at the Universidad Computense), and lived for a year in London. Somewhere along the way--there's a certain vagueness in her own reports--"I specialized in old style animation and worked as an illustrator and set designer."




Having been warned that painting was dead, she became a painter.  "'Art died with Duchamp, forget about drawing'--that's what my professors taught me and that's why I wanted to  get out of the studio and the academy."



She likes painting illegally.  "The adrenalin," she notes, "the 15 minute countdown to do something decent--to have your eyes on the lookout, to test what you can do spontaneously." Some of the smaller pieces she's done in Rome probably are in the "illegal" category, for she likes to paint on public objects--trash bins, electrical boxes, for example--that "could need a little love."

A small portion of Alice's work at a bar/kiosk in
Piazza Mancini, Flaminio

That said, in a current climate in which the best street art is recognized, encouraged and, in a certain way, contained, Pasquini has found accommodation with the "academy."  In Rome, her work has been exhibited at MACRO (2014), the American Embassy (2013), the Casa dell'Architettura (2013, a sensational one-woman show), and most recently at the Temple University gallery on the Tevere (2015).  In addition, it seems obvious that much of the Flaminio work--on kiosk businesses--was accomplished with permission.

Army barracks, site of 2015 Outdoor Festival, opening Oct. 2

With 15 other artists, Pasquini will participate in the 2015 edition of the Outdoor Festival, mounted this year at via Guido Reni 7, a former army barracks (ex-caserma) near the MAXXI gallery in Flaminio.  The show opens October 2.

One needn't depend on galleries to see Pasquini's work.  There's plenty of it on Rome's walls and other surfaces--especially in Flaminio, where she lived for a time with fellow street artist C215 (an influence on her work), Quadraro, and San Lorenzo, where a major mural lines via dei Sabelli.

Pasquini's street art celebrates "strong, independent women" (her words), contemplative, confident, sensuous, emotional, and usually joyful young women, meeting the world and engaging life in a physical way, whether leaping in exultation, riding a motorscooter (above), running, or relaxing in the confidence of one's body (see the painting at the top of this post). A website describes her art as "affectionate."




The via dei Sabelli mural (above and below) in San Lorenzo has a dark, threatening quality--one is tempted to say post-apocalyptic.

The elaborate work carried out in the basement of the Casa dell'Architettura, titled "Cave of Tales" (translated into English) also has that dark, foreboding quality, here suggesting that young women in the big city face a potentially difficult and threatening future.

The challenges of the big city, rendered in something
like German expressionist style

Alice at work

Alice plans with a ballpoint pen and sketchbook.  Studio work is accomplished with acrylics and enamels on wood, smaller city pieces with stencils, larger wall paintings with acrylics and spray paints.  Her work doesn't strike us as unusually innovative, especially given the enormous creativity and inventiveness of the current generation of street artists.  She's a painter, working--again, for a street artist--in a surprisingly traditional style and with a feminist message that's both welcome and rather well-traveled.

As you walk the city and come across the art of Alice Pasquini, consider, too, her words describing the dilemma of the street artist:

Moscow, 2014

"An artist who works outside, you always have one problem: you work someplace which isn't your own, where you don't live and to which you may not ever return.  What you do should be artistically or politically important.  But it is not a given that it will be positive for the people who have to live with it every day. This is a risk I take with my form of art."

Bill

Alice decorates a small trailer, courtyard of the Lanificio, a factory artspace, via di Pietralata, 59 (2013) . Dianne at right 

Roman Women: Working in the Streets

There are feminists in Italy, and in Rome, but it would be too much to say that the country, and the city, have embraced women's rights.  Some of this reluctance has to do with the Italian family, an entity held in high regard (to say the least) for generations, if not centuries, and the normative role of women in that family. This was especially true under Fascism, when Mussolini demanded more children per family (at least 8, up to 20) and the state subsidized maternity homes with a tax on spinsters and bachelors, among others.  Naturally, most women stayed home to raise the kids.  Women didn't get the vote until 1946, but adultery by a woman was still a public offense.  Not until 1975 did the Italian parliament abolish the right of a husband to control his wife's existence. 

Caught taking her picture

By 2000, the average family size was 2.6 persons, and only about 2% of families had 4 or more children.  Moreover, women of all ages could be seen scootering around Rome, a form of physical liberation, at least.

Even so, as of the turn of this century less than 1% of Italian managers were women, only 10% of parliamentarians were women (and 33% of Italian women said they wouldn't trust a woman prime minister), only 44% of women were employed--the lowest figure in the European Union--and women were dramatically underrepresented in every basic job category--state employees, factory workers, business owners, self-employed--except office workers, where there was rough parity. 

What's surprising then, is that one sees women cleaning the streets and picking up trash.  Yes, cleaning the streets and picking up trash--jobs usually associated with men and, in Buffalo, where RST sometimes resides, an occupation apparently (from our observation) all male. 

Who would have guessed?

Bill

As part of her job, this woman postal worker gets to ride a scooter--on the sidewalk even. 

It's a Women's World: 8 Women Artists in Rome from the 70s to Today

Temple University’s current exhibit in Rome underscores our mantra that one should go to the less glitzy and less publicized exhibits.  Temple’s current show of 8 Italian women artists, spanning the period from the 70s to the present, is “da non perdere” – i.e., not to be missed. 

The women tell their stories about being artists in a period of intense feminism, and the meaning of those heady years for their work today. 

The show features a work from each artist’s earlier period plus a contemporary work.  Panels in Italian and English give  insight into the Italian women artists and their role in 20^th and 21st century art, because of the documentary information provided.

The show is mounted in collaboration with Rome’s Casa Internazionale delleDonne (“International Women’s House” – also noted in Rome the Second Time, as one of the city-sponsored – sort-of – “case” or “houses” of culture).  “Il mondo e’ delle donne:  Artiste a Roma tra anni ’70 e oggi” (“It's a women’s world:  Women Artists in Rome from the 70s to today”; btw, some debate in the family about the translation).  It is the first of several collaborations – to which we say “bravo”!  The show – unfortunately from our perspective – is up only until October 14.  Run, don’t walk. [And while you're running, run to the City's 4 big contemporary art galleries (MAXXI, MACRO - both, and G.N.A.M.) today, Oct. 8 - free as part of Contemporary Art Day in Italy.]

We couldn’t find a website for the Temple show, but for more information, contact Shara Wasserman, director of exhibitions, at s.wasserman@tiscalinet.it.  Temple is at Lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia 15, just a bit beyond Piazza del Popolo.  The gallery is open 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and by appointment on weekends.  Dianne

Scooter Feminism

First, a confession. About 15 years ago I got it into my head that there was a market out there for a coffee-table book featuring Nikon-made photographs of Roman women navigating the city on scooters and cycles. My camera has changed--it's digital now--but the adolescent fantasy remains, weakened by an aging body but also strengthened by my decision, a few years ago, to get a scooter and ride those streets. You won't believe it, but my interest in this subject is feminist; riding a scooter on the streets of Rome requires courage, a certain athleticism, decisiveness, even strength. It is liberating. Let's call it scooter feminism.

Waiting for the light to change and the charge to begin and there, on my left and on my right, chicks on bikes. One on a small scooter, perched on the front of the seat, reaching for the handlebars with short arms, knees pressed against the metal, all earnestness. Another policing an unruly skirt in the breeze. A single working girl, headed home from the office, in slacks and impeccable white blouse, purse on the floorboard. A tough girl in leather and full helmet, astride a fast bike known, perhaps unfortunately, as a crotch-rocket. (The girl in pink, above, is on a crotch-rocket). Most girls wear jeans. Occasionally, high heels (photo at left) and often, sandals (last pic), which offer scant protection when you're underneath a scooter that's sliding down the asphalt.

One day in the spring of 2007, I dropped Dianne off at Castel Sant'Angelo, where they were doing a show on art work that had been stolen and recovered, or something like that. Instead, I planned to take some pics of chicks on bikes. I crossed the Tevere on the nearby Ponte Sant'Angelo, then crossed the wide and busy thoroughfare known there as the Lungotevere Tor di Nona, and took up a position downriver on the corner of Via Paola, my camera ready.

The results were not what I had hoped for. It proved harder than I ever imagined to identify at a distance a woman I wanted to photograph, and harder still--indeed, impossible, given my skills-- to capture the action moving by at 35/50 km per hour. About all I could manage were still photos of women sitting on their cycles and scooters waiting for the light to turn green.

And even that was challenging, not to mention embarrassing. The ladies know what you're up to, even if you don't (see right). I like the yellow top. A good example of dressing for safety.

The book project is on hold.

Bill