In the lecture on March 31, 1981, that Gilles Deleuze gave at the experimental university of Vincennes, reflecting on the value of catastrophe as the only act capable of generating painting, he questioned the functioning of the painter’s eye. He boldly stated that this eye, in its effort to mentally translate the image, can redden, becoming a reason for the perception of an optical chaos that prevents a clear view [1].
Titina Maselli solo show, installation view, MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, courtesy MLAC, Roma, ph. credit Rachele Sesana
In such circumstances, the painting emerging from this physical-visual effort is most often composed of a spatial skeleton of well-defined geometric shapes, formations of structures whose planes intersect and fall into perfect vertical equilibrium. It might seem bold and rather risky, but certainly stimulating, to believe that the red eye ordering the chaos through space, time and color was also possessed by Titina Maselli (Rome, 1924 – 2005). The painter is currently the protagonist of a scientific research and exhibition project in Rome aimed at stimulating a new flow of visitors through connections and new cultural itineraries. Indeed, Maselli’s work is part of two exhibitions, one at Casino dei Principi at Villa Torlonia and the other at the MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea di Roma, both of which are open until April 21, 2025. The projects, considering the richness of the displayed works and the critical structure they offer, can certainly be considered interconnected but also usable independently.
Titina Maselli solo show, installation view, MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, courtesy MLAC, Roma, ph. credit Rachele Sesana
What is presented by the MLAC is curated by a group of art historians, researchers and university professors such as Claudio Crescentini, Federica Pirani, Ilaria Schiaffini, Claudia Terenzi, Giulia Tulino, and includes important loans from museum institutions and private collectors. In addition, there is archival material that helps reconstruct the painter’s work in the theatrical field, including sculptural models of the stage sets she designed, along with photographic documentation by Monica Biancardi and the committed critical and historical apparatus reconstructed with the original catalogs from the Archive of the Rome Quadriennale, the Lionello Venturi Archive and the Enrico Crispolti Archive. Furthermore, the exhibition serves not only as a showcase for works, but also as a catalyst for events, like the study day dedicated to Titina Maselli which took place in January 2025, thus contributing to defining the historical figure and the research of the painter as much as the project itself is doing concretely. In particular, the group of works displayed at the MLAC outlines a short but effective path, as it is capable of illustrating Maselli’s work, which would be too limiting to confine solely to the experience of painting sensitive to the dynamism of Futurism and Pop art, moments related to her participation in the Biennials since the 1950s.
Titina Maselli solo show, installation view, MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, courtesy MLAC, Roma, ph. credit Rachele Sesana
In fact, the exhibition reveals a strong and specific identity of the artist, undoubtedly marked by a particular interest in the energy of movement, in the need to freeze an action in its unfolding with its specific environmental and dimensional tensions. In Maselli, life unfolds in the specific question stimulated by Deleuze’s interpretation: what is the purpose of the painter’s red eye if not to freeze moments of chaos emerging from an urban and city environment or in the context of a sports event? Although the spatial structures are traced on the canvas in the absence of preparatory drawings, in all cases they are designed to both contain the chaos generated by the explosion of energy from a certain moving form and to enclose, with elegant harmony, whatever the artist’s eye is able to decipher in this disorder.
Titina Maselli, “Calciatori in corsa”, 2002, acrylic on canvas, 99,5 x 200 cm, courtesy Collezione Brai-Maselli
By using an image composed through visual noise, that is, a painting based on the overlapping and alternation of airy and deep spatial layers, visualized through perspective funnels as if projected by a cinematograph, the artist maintains a deliberate generalization regarding architectures and the identities of bodies. Thus, the painter’s imaginary, for a specific intention, except when depicting the seductive and languid face of Greta Garbo, is not defined so that what we see represents something other than what no longer is, because it is about to be swept away before our eyes in an instant. Focusing on the balances and imbalances of open sky surfaces, characterized by a stroke both heavy and fluid, the homogeneity of the dark black tone, vivid orange, and intense blue conveys a particular sense of tonal heaviness, slightly lightened by the presence of lightning bolts of light.
Titina Maselli, “Le Plongeon”, 1971, acrylic on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, courtesy Galleria Massimo Minini
Furthermore, Maselli works on the theme of composition as a collection of not solid, but perpetually unstable architectures, ready at any moment to disintegrate, as if the structures were fixed just a moment before their imminent fall. Yet, even here, the presence of thin and spiny geometric elements, which intersect defining different frameworks in a substantial woven fabric, satin and damask, returns as a necessary and characteristic technical device of her painting. Thus, the primary image alternately intertwines with the secondary image in the background. In this way, Maselli addresses the issue of signs and how they manage to fix the action in space, starting from a body that assumes a particular pose, also managing to arrest the energy it emanates, proving capable of portraying the most invisible forces exerted in the immediate impact of recoil. Thus, the viewer is invited to read the image of a visual flash that freezes the action of a boxer or the sprint of a cyclist, very short-lived movements, all captured in the voracity of the gaze of a rotating eye.
Titina Maselli, “Grande cielo”, 1967, acrylic on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, courtesy Galleria Massimo Minini
This interruption of an engaging energy starting from an action is the result of a reading of Maselli executed through a particular technical solution in painting that works through analogy and the breaking of resemblances. Specifically, in the works on display, the subject is depicted in analogy to how a cinematic scene would be treated, similar to the view through a window or what would be transmitted on a television screen, so that this mode is drastically reproduced through a radical observer’s zoom that breaks any visual balance. Therefore, the artist, fully capturing a peculiar visual setting of the scene, gives form to a final work based on the breaking of resemblances because she does not intend to reflect on architectural balances, specific fragile iconographies of the popular culture of the time, nor on characters or the development of narratives, but rather to transmit a sequence of dynamic gestures and spatial ruptures. Maselli seeks to stimulate an intriguing doubt: what secret truly lies in the act of painting the simplest and most rudimentary forces and energies that materialize before the eyes? These images are difficult to interpret visually, as only the red-colored eye can capture that chaos which blends in the invisible engine of energy and events.
[1] Gilles Deleuze, Sulla pittura, corsi marzo-giugno 1981, edited by David Lapoujade, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 2024, p. 19.
Info:
Titina Maselli
12/12/2024 – 21/04/2025
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 12 pm to 19 pm
MLAC – Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea
Città Universitaria, Sapienza Università di Roma
Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5 – 00185, Roma
www.museolaboratorioartecontemporanea.it
Maria Vittoria Pinotti (1986, San Benedetto del Tronto) is an art historian, author, and independent critic. She currently is the coordinator of Claudio Abate’s photographic archive and Manager at Elena Bellantoni’s Studio. From 2016 to 2023 she was the Gallery Manager in a gallery in the historic center of Rome. She has worked with ministerial offices such as the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and the Central State Archive. Currently, she collaborates with cultural sector magazines, focusing on in-depth thematic studies dedicated to modern and contemporary art.
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