Terra animata 1967

Luca Maria Patella composed a series of performative actions by his wife/collaborator Rosa Foschi and playwright Claudio Meldolesi in a sparse landscape. Bodies, objects and natural features are shown from different perspectives and angles, proposing a sort of visual harmony within the silent film. Through geometry, texture, movement and stasis, Patella animates, creating a sense of communion with nature on a similar wavelength to Ana Mendieta’s actions, and with a stark difference to the comparative coldness and objectivity that the work of land artists of the contemporary era would reflect.

SKMP2 1968

An “ironic visual reportage” of four artist projects at the L’Attico gallery in Rome, 1968. Patella infuses the work of the artists from the arte povera movement with touches of surrealism, as tinted monochromatic footage of these exhibitions/actions lends them a silent film aesthetic. The title refers to the last names of the main players: gallery owner Fabio Sargentini and artists Jannis Kounellis, Eliseo Mattiacci, Pino Pascali and Luca Maria Patella himself. Kounellis is shown using the gallery as a studio, dying bits of cloth among live animals; Mattiacci engages passerby in a happening on the city streets; Patella and Rosa Foschi are shown in a similar scenario to Terra Animata, with a flag performance in a landscape; and Pascali executes a bizarre ritual on the beach, covered to his neck in sand and later planting whole loaves of bread.

Vedo, vado! 1969