Audio interviews and illustrations below. As we mention particular buildings and views, click on the relevant thumbnail.
The distinguished old master dealer,
Robert Simon, held his first exhibition of a contemporary artist this past November and December. Entitled
The Third Rome : Allegorical Landscapes of the Modern City, it was devoted to the current work of
Pamela Talese, a Brooklyn-based painter known for her haunting views of gritty industrial sites around the Navy Yard and Red Hook. Around 2012, she found that she had exhausted this subjects and everything else in New York City, and she decided to return to Rome for the first time in twenty-two years, applying for an artist’s fellowship at the American Academy and, once there, after exploring contemporary buildings, like Renzo Piano’s Parco della Musica, she began to explore more recent neighborhoods outside the historical center. By “more recent,” I mean areas developed in the 1920s and 1930s, that is, the Fascist Era. Exploring the neighborhoods on her bicycle with her painting box and folding easel strapped on, Ms. Talese felt attracted to certain buildings that stood out for their clean, simple lines and elegant design. These were prime examples of Fascist architecture—modest, functional residential edifices, utilitarian civic structures, and a few public buildings. Virtually none of these appear in the surveys of Fascist architecture—with one notable exception, the Foro Italico (originally called the Foro Mussolini).
When I was in Rome for my post-doctoral work from 1983 to 1985, I used to take Sunday afternoons off from the Renaissance and indulge in passeggiate in some of those neighborhoods. I found something comforting in the quietude of the streets and rather more aesthetic pleasure than I expected in the same simple, elegant structures Pamela Talese, in her paintings, has recorded and interpreted with such assurance, subtle feeling, and generous observation. Impressed by their openness to light and air, and their straightforward functionality, I assumed these buildings were constructed in the post-war years, above all the early 1930s, but no, through this exhibition and conversations with Ms. Talese, I have learned something about their history, i.e. that they belong to Mussolini’s time, and that they arose out of ideas of city planning and architectural style which he and his movement espoused.
Pamela Talese regards Mussolini as the Robert Moses of early 20th century Italy, and in that, I believe, she is absolutely correct. The two had a lot in common. One could easily imagine books on Fascist city planning and architecture and perhaps a few about and by Albert Speer on Moses’ shelves.
You can hear Ms. Talese’s perceptive, nuanced account of this in the two podcast interviews presented here: the first segment concerns her project, which still continues after several years of annual visits, and the second, the historical background of Fascist architecture. These were extrapolated from one, lengthy and very enjoyable conversation, but for coherence and accessibility I have edited it into two.
On one evening during the exhibition there was a brilliant pair of talks and conversation, moderated by Robert Simon, with Pamela Talese and the
Luigi Ballerini, Emeritus Professor UCLA, Distinguished poet, translator, food historian, and critic, and author of the essay “The Foro Mussolini and The Marble Boys of Yesteryear” that accompanies the photographs by George Mott in Foro Italico (PowerHouse Books 2003). Professor Ballerini encapsulated my own feelings...
