LUCE MOVIMENTO.
The experimental cinema of Marinella Pirelli
Museo del Novecento presents a monographic exhibition dedicated to Marinella Pirelli (1925 – 2009), which highlights the intention of the Museum to shed a critical light not only on the great masters of the last century, but also on active and pioneering artists who are still unknown to the public. This strongly research-oriented exhibition aims at present a sharp experimenter of the Italian visual language in the light of the national and international context while showing the cross-media and interdisciplinary nature of the 20th century.
"Light Movement. The Experimental Cinema of Marinella Pirelli" is promoted and produced by the City of Milan | Culture with Electa, and curated by Lucia Aspesi and Iolanda Ratti. This show follows the monographic exhibition at the Permanente (Milan, 2003) and a solo exhibition by Marinella Pirelli focussed on her research on light presented at Villa Panza (Varese, 2004).
Marinella Pirelli began her activity in the Italian art scene after the Second World War, and developed a constant research on light and movement. This led to the creation of pioneering artworks in the field of experimental films in the 60s.
Despite her lifelong, often successful career as a painter, Marinella Pirelli’s innovative potential lies in her work on the moving-image. In the early 50s, while working as animator and illustrator at Filmeco, she started to engage with film materials and film techniques. However, it was only in the second half of the 60s that Marinella consciously and lucidly elected film as her main artistic medium, as reported in her memories: “…at that time, I always had the camera with me, just like a painter does with paper and pencil. I used to take notes with my camera: this is how I developed my work”.
Museo del Novecento presents a great selection of the artist’s works both related to her production on the Experimental Cinema and light projects, starting from 1961 (year of her first animation film) up to 1974, when Marinella realised her last film “Doppio autoritratto”, before withdrawing from the art scene for almost thirty years.
The exhibition is enriched by a variegated publi program, including free guided tours, meetings, lectures and film projections. Discover the whole timetable here.