the palazzo

 

The line “It sounds real classy living in a chateau” from the punk rock band The Tubes' 1977 hit song “White Punks on Dope” could apply to me. I live in a 16th century palazzo in Rome. People immediately have visions of opulence and frescoed ceilings. But not this palazzo. I live in Trastevere, the other side of the river, or metaphorically, the other side of the tracks. Traditionally it's been the working class district. The only fine palazzo I can think of over here, apart from a few ecclesiastical buildings, is Palazzo Corsini, originally built near the end of the 15th century by a Cardinal Riario, brother to the Pope at the time and father of the future Pope Julius II (of Michelangelo fame). Later the property was acquired and renovated by Queen Christina of Sweden who converted to Christianity and settled in Rome. In the 18th century it was bought by the Corsini family, and retains their name today. Across the street from Palazzo Corsini is the fabulously luxurious Villa Farnesina built by the incredibly rich Agostino Chigi in the early 16th century, who happened to be Pope Julius II's banker. These properties, though are not technically in Trastevere. They are outside the City walls, just beyond the Porta Septimiana on the road leading to the Vatican. But I digress...

Palazzo Leoni-Pizzirani is in the literal heart of Trastevere, forming one side of the major piazza, facing the antique and venerable Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere. Originally built in the 4th century, the Basilica was reconstructed in its present form in the 12th century and gussied up in the 17th and 19th centuries. The monumental columns pilfered from the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and the mosaics by Pietro Cavallini from all those centuries ago still remain intact to this day. The via Aurelia, one of the great consular roads of ancient Rome (constructed circa 240 BC) delineates another side of the piazza which has existed here pretty much the same since before the time of Caesar.

By the early 1600's a clump of 5 buildings on the east side of the piazza had coalesced into the nascent Palazzo built by the Cesarini family, their avatar the eagle (a rather skinny specimen it might be noted, but I guess things weren't as fat back then) still spreads its wings above the main and only entrance. The bestiary continues inside on the piano nobile with a lion's head on the crest of the Leoni family who acquired the palazzo in the 18th century. In 1778 this main floor (piano nobile) was occupied by the newly established “Venerabile Conservatorio di S Giuseppe”, a “Conservatorio delle Pericolanti” or conservatory for those in danger, meaning young girls. 42 of them under the age of 18 were housed here, and you can guess the dangers. Rome was a very rough town. The 19th century saw the palazzo pass to the Pizzirani family who added the top floor to the building, and still own the building today.

The neighborhood has suffered significantly over the past years from gentrification. One by one (with a few exceptions) stores for local needs have become more upscale stores for the tourist trade. The palazzo has resisted this trend, retaining its grittiness, but change is infiltrating here too. As long time residents have died or moved away, the vacant apartments are restructured and modernized, the old cotta tiles laid in red and black patterns are replaced with fake wood laminate floors, and rented out as Airbnb. In 2015 the exterior was cleaned of a century+ of grime and repainted. A team of restorers descended one day on the stairwell wearing hazmat suits and pre-covid n95 masks and with surgical precision removed discreet layers of paint to reveal the colors of centuries past. Beneath the current beige and brown is a forgotten palette of creams, pale blue and even some reddish-orange. Still, the place retains its forgotten Old Rome feel.

It is that forgotten authenticity that appeals to me. It is the past, not a sanitized version of the past. Up and down the well worn grand staircase to the piano nobile has, I realize, inspired me on a subconscious level. The erosion of the stonework, the repairs, the suturing of materials to replace what was lost has crept into my work as a visual doppelganger of my daily ascent and descent. My experience has been made manifest.

Not content with with subconscious interactions, I occasionally engage in physical interactions with the space. I admit, I have treated the space as my playground, wondering my “if” out loud, not particularly caring if the neighbors are listening. Its just a little more grime added to the centuries.

post script: after a weekend of installing and photographing my drawings in and around the public spaces I heard a very loud voice in the stairwell speaking to the caretaker. I assumed the speaker was Pizzirani himself, heir to the palazzo. My drawings were gone. Outside the palazzo was a notice of an upcoming meeting of The Committee for Life in Trastevere aggressively taped to the door. Item number 4 on the agenda to be discussed was “street artists”. Not sure if that was a good sign or not...

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Lei Feng - culturally appropriate

Artist development classes always suggest that besides a resume and a bio an artist should have what is called an “elevator pitch” - a prepared 30 second description of your artistic practice. My pitch (even though no one has ever asked what I do whilst in an elevator) states in part that my work revolves around deconstructing cultural narratives. In China, that narrative has involved Lei Feng, hero of the Cultural Revolution.

Lei Feng (1940-1962) posthumously became the poster boy for the Chinese Communist Party when in 1963 Mao declared that all should learn from Comrade Lei Feng. His diary was published, photos of him performing good deeds appeared (complete with harsh stage lighting) and school children sang songs about him. He was the perfect Hero minted for turbulent times. He was an orphan, available for every mother to desire and protect as her own. His cupid's bow lips made every schoolgirl swoon, his work as a mechanic driving a truck in the People's Liberation Army was the envy of every schoolboy. He had the rare combination of both compassion and political fervor. He extolled the virtues of Mao and the Communist Party and he darned his comrade's socks and helped old ladies in the rain. Like all good Heroes, he died young before the cynicism of old age set in – although his death was a bit unusual... He was directing a truck to back up which hit a telephone pole that fell upon his  head and killed him. 

"I Want To Be A Rustless Screw"  (Lei Feng diary entry) 
Christopher Pelley  temporary installation  Beijing

One of the earliest images of China I remember was back in the late 60's, early 70's, when China was always referred to as Red China. It was a photo in the local newspaper of a low brick building covered with sheets of paper with large Chinese characters written on them. This was the height of the terror that was the Cultural Revolution and these were public denunciations. Memories of that grainy newspaper image stirred when I ended up in a village outside of Beijing in 2014 seeing buildings of a style reminiscent of that old photo. So began the journey connecting my youthful impressions of Red China with the modern country existing within the not-to-be-mentioned long shadow of the cultural revolution. Lei Feng became the protagonist, the vehicle to unravel what I saw.

The image and message of the good deeds and fealty of Lei Feng has been revived by the Communist Party leadership may times over the intervening half century. The public views the little soldier either negatively as a top down heavy handed production of the propaganda machine or he is embraced in the enduring allure of the hero myth. I appropriated not only his image but also the propaganda tropes and used culturally significant materials to navigate my Chinese experience.

      

advert for exhibition at 東西projects       

In an old building in Shangyuan Village, Beijing I opened 東西projects, a curatorial projects space where I freely referenced the imagery of the Cultural Revolution

東西projects space, Beijing

Christopher Pelley  "Lei Feng Coal Dust"

Christopher Pelley  "Chinese Characteristics #3"

oil/canvas, string

Christopher Pelley  "Red Star w/ Rice Sparrow"

spent fire cracker papers, rice

As I write this blog post I am in Rome, surrounded by the debris that informed my Catholic youth. Everywhere is the imagery of hands pointing accusingly up to heaven or down to hell. The martyrs, whose lives were snuffed out by the most brutal of means – burnings, beheadings, fed to wild beasts – are portrayed in graphic detail on ceilings and walls at every turn. As a boy I would have much preferred dreaming of a young man, not much older than myself, working on motors and driving trucks than contemplating the psycho-sadistic terrors brought upon the christian faithful. But that, dear reader, is another narrative to be deconstructed.

La Fornarina

When I see two disparate objects, I like to ask what is the connection? That's just the way I am. That's how my mind works, always trying to find the relationships, trying to make sense and order out of my daily chaos.

Piazza di Sant' Apollonia is a tiny piazza in the Trastevere section of Rome, where the church and attached convent of Sant' Apollonia, now long since gone, once existed. The urban fabric retains the name and an apartment block built in 1888 incorporates remnants and follows the footprint of the demolished convent and church. When I moved into an apartment in the Palazzo Leoni-Pizzirani which looms over the diminutive piazza, there were a few items left behind by the previous tenant. One item, lone on a shelf, was a bag of flour.

As I unpacked and settled in, organizing, sorting and arranging the space, my mind, that ever restless extension of self, fretted unsettled over this bag of flour and its relationship to the piazza below me.

They say that Raphael fell in love with a baker's daughter who lived in the neighborhood – maybe on Vicolo del Cedro, maybe on Via di Santa Dorotea, while working on a commission decorating the filthy rich 1%er Agostini Chigi's Villa Farnesina a couple hundred meters away.

Raphael  "La Fornarina"

Raphael was obsessed with her. He painted her portrait. The eyes are twinkling, hesitant to make direct contact with the viewer, the lips are full with just a twitch of a knowing smile. The shoulders and breasts are bare, a diaphanous whatever held without conviction between her right hand and the left breast which she gently fingers, falls with a few cascading folds over her naked tummy. The rich coral colored dress has slumped from the upper half of her body, clumping around the waist. Her legs, the only things concealed by the voluminous folds, are slightly parted, her hand resting on her pudenda with fingers splayed, pushing apart the folds in what can only be construed as a beckoning gesture. Yes, it is as I described it... it's 16th century porn.

They say that Chigi was so exasperated that Raphael kept skipping out to dally with the baker's daughter, that he had her installed at the Villa. There is also a tradition that says that Raphael had rooms in the little piazza outside my door. The whirlwind romance did not last for long. Within a year, Raphael was dead at the age of 37. The baker's daughter “retired” to the convent of Sant' Apollonia where she lived out her life in the cloister.

My mind relaxed. Like an Umberto Eco novel, it had found connection and meaning between place and thing. Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly for those of you who believe nothing is completely random) the connection goes farther than a bag of flour and the baker's daughter. There was at the time of Raphael a tiny church in the piazza dedicated to San Cristoforo, my namesake and patron saint. That church was demolished when Sant' Apollonia was rebuilt and enlarged in 1582, but an ancient fresco of Christopher was saved and lingered on in the new complex.

Armed with this knowledge I was motivated to take action. I used the bag of flour to remember La Fornarina in the piazza. In the end though, like the church and convent, all was swept away.

Pelley  "La Fornarina" in Piazza di S Apollonia

Pelley  "La Fornarina"

Pelley  "La Fornarina" selfie

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