Italy is (also) a country of artists and beyond the best known among them there is an entire galaxy of personalities perhaps even more interesting than those whose names we know. Among these there is Anna Paparetti, a free woman born in Calabria and who came to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome with the talent and vocation for painting, distinguished herself for a series of geometric paintings that became particularly popular during the 1960s. The documentary is dedicated to her The Painter (here is the trailer), directed by Fabiana Sargentini (Everything about my father Fabio Sargentini, I don’t know yet), daughter of Paparatti herself, to whom he therefore dedicates a portrait that alternates moments of play with critical seriousness.
The opportunity for this documentary project developed following when, in 2021, the artistic director of Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuriproposes to Paparatti to use his geometric paintings, “The big game” And “Pop-goose”, “Le jeu qui n’existe pas” And “The nonsense game” – canvases that remained for years in his large house on the Lungotevere in Rome – to build the set up of Dior’s Parisian ready-to-wear fashion show in the same year. An opportunity that therefore brings Anna Paparatti back onto the contemporary scene.
Anna Paparatti, the Painter
The Painter therefore retraces the story of Anna Paparatti, who following her studies at the Academy became part, from within, of fifty years of Italian and international contemporary art history. In particular, the film brings together her strong fascination for Indian culture and philosophy, but naturally also her relationship with the gallery owner. Fabio Sargentinifrom whose gallery Lactic artists and intellectuals who animated the Roman and international artistic scene of the 60s and 70s passed by and by coming into contact with whom Paparatti was able to further form his own artistic personality.
L’Attico itself represents a watershed moment in the life and career of Anna Paparetti. In the famous Italian gallery, where in addition to art there is also space for the avant-garde musical and performative research that contributed so much to the diffusion of certain cultures, the artist becomes a real figure of reference for those who gravitated around that environment, from Pino Pascali to Piero Pizzi Cannella (present in The Painter as a narrator) until Sol LeWittfamous artist linked to various movements, including conceptual art and minimalism.
Telling its story therefore also means telling that of an artistic and cultural environment of an Italy that no longer exists. This is accomplished through unpublished materials from the artist’s personal archive, unique archive images, photographs and various works, as well as fragments of important films in which his paintings can be found. Naturally, the interviews with fellow travelers who observed the entire journey and then Papatti’s rise on the international scene are also fundamental. In the midst of all these elements, however, the presence of Paparatti herself stands out, who talks about herself without filters and offers her own fascinating vision of art.
Artists are born, mothers are made
“Being artists? You are. You can’t do anything else” he states in fact Anna Paparetti in the first scenes of the documentary and for the entire duration of it the director Fabiana Sargentini carries out a delicate investigation into what this awareness meant for her mother and how this vocation overwhelmed every other aspect of her life. Because if it’s true that The Painter offers a detailed historical excursus, it is worth noting that this collective story comes to life starting from the relationship between a mother and a daughter and that this dictates in its own way the progress and path taken by the documentary.
Fabiana Sargentini – just as she had already done with the documentary dedicated to her father – guides us to discover her mother Anna Paparatti, giving the impression of rediscovering her in turn as the film unfolds and this gives the documentary that certain spontaneity and sensitivity capable of making such a personal story become universal. With The Paintertherefore, we learn and are surprised, we enjoy Anna Paparatti’s wit and at the same time we have confirmation of how varied and worthy of being discovered today’s world of Italian art is.
