‘ANNAmo”, street art meets Anna Magnani in Rome

1956 was a crucial year for Anna Magnani: the actress won the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for The Rose Tattoo and received the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama in the same year. With his charisma and indomitable spirit, Magnani conquered the world, becoming an icon of neorealist cinema. Today, 70 years after these triumphs, his figure continues to inspire and live on through his artistic legacy.

“An artist is a very difficult thing to define. Artists are selfish, egocentric, a bit exhibitionist. But woe if they weren’t there”, said Anna Magnani in a 1964 interview. In this exhibition “it’s up to fifteen international artists of urban art to define ‘Nannarella’ and compare themselves with her. Each in their own way, with the studies, ideas and techniques that their own artistic path has suggested to them. Challenging all the difficulties that true artists have to face, when there is a fixed theme on which they must express themselves”, declares the curator Bruno Ialuna. “Each of them explores themes such as beauty, passion, pain and authenticity that characterized the life and career of the great actress. Each work is a tribute to a different aspect of her personality and her life, which she always tried to live without compromise, on and off the stage.”

“This exhibition – underlines the creator Tina Vannini – was born from the desire to reread Anna Magnani through the powerful language of street art, in the place that marked a fundamental part of her life: via Margutta. Here, Anna lived, loved and created, intertwining decisive artistic relationships, including that with Federico Fellini. Bringing ‘ANNAmo’ to this space means restoring to her memory an authentic context, where art and life have always met. Fifteen contemporary artists reinterpret her spirit free, creating images that speak to the present and celebrate a cultural heritage that is still alive and current”

Anna’s wrinkles, symbol of an intense life and experiences lived without reservations, are at the center of Maupal’s work. Mauro Sgarbi, through his social commitment, includes Anna Magnani in his project ‘La carne di Roma’, a strong reminder of her belonging to Rome and her passion for the city. Anna’s love for animals, and in particular for her beloved dogs, is celebrated in Mobydick’s work, while Giusy Guerriero shows us the face of the diva now marked by time, a tangible sign of choices made without compromise. Elena Gallo instead returns a face that laughs and shouts at the same time: a double and very powerful image, which recalls the actress’s awareness of having transformed deprivation and wounds into the origin of her own artistic intensity.

A symbolic and conceptual homage is the one created by Sid: in the center dominates a Roman scale from which an anatomical heart hangs, weighed as if it were living matter and ultimate truth. Ale Senso, with the work “Pensieri mobili come chiome”, takes up the whirlwind of ideas and the struggle of Anna, a woman always ahead of her time and, for this reason, constantly in battle with a society that did not fully understand her. The concept of authenticity and female strength is also explored in depth by Uman, which has always dealt with the theme of women as the protagonist of their own lives. With a more intimate and material intensity, Elisa Tamburrini presents the three-dimensional triptych ‘Womb-sized’. Anna’s bond with Rome is represented in many works in the exhibition: Diavu’, with ‘Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani), Rame13 and Er Pinto tell of her humanity, her simplicity and her courage. The lightness of her laughter and her intense face, symbol of a Rome that faces difficulties with dignity, are taken up in the work of Miss K. Lediesis re-propose one of Magnani’s most iconic images, a tribute that places her in the pantheon of contemporary ‘superwomen’ and which, for the first time, arrives on display in a canvas version. Finally, Blub’s work, which celebrates the night of the Oscar victory with the title ‘The Rose of Rome’.