Produced in January 1974, just after the death of her husband Giovanni Pirelli, the last film by Marinella Pirelli, austere and moving, appeared as an attempt to exorcise this event and the elaboration of grief. In the double role of actress and director, the artist records herself in movement without controlling the image. Érik Bullot

In this work, Marinella Pirelli invertes the traditional relationship between the author and the spectator as stated in the the film's opening credits: "the camera is now my partner, each of you is now my partner". 

The work is dedicated to conceptual artist Vincenzo Agnetti, here presented with his painting ‘When I Saw Myself I Wasn't There’ (1971). In the film, the camera records the artist's face and gazes uncontrollably, restoring intimate surfaces and pauses burdened by the weight of emotion. Offering herself as an integral tool to the filmic process, the author frees the movement of the camera by acting on the distance between seeing and acting. In Doppio Autoritratto it is precisely what goes beyond the classic vision, that is, abstract surfaces, out of focus and shapeless shadows, that seduces us. – Lucia Aspesi

Published on the occasion of Light Movement. The Experimental Cinema of Marinella Pirelli at the Museo del Novecento, Milan (22 March - 25 August 2019), this catalogue is the artist's first extensive monograph, including a complete filmography, written by the critic and filmmaker Érik Bullot.

Get your copy here. 

"This very short film portraits Luciano Fabro recording the breast of the Florentine art critic Carla Lonzi on a piece of paper, drawing a circle with a pencil, cutting it, producing a cone, wrapping it with a needle. 

Once again the film proves Marinella’s closeness to the Italian artistic scene and, in particular, her relationship with Carla Lonzi, who had a deep influence on her personal and artistic path. Moreover, the film highlights Marinella Pirelli’s early intuition with reference to the importance of the documentation of artistic actions and gestures. Produced without a post-production and filmed with a Bolex camera, after a dinner among friends, the film has a duration of a 16mm strip that is about 30 meters long . After producing films characterized by music, like Il Lago or La piccola noia, such document represents for the artist a breath of fresh air, allowing her to experiment freely."

– Érik Bullot, Luce Movimento. Il cinema sperimentale di Marinella Pirelli, exhibition catalogue, Mondadori Eelecta, 2019

Sat in her studio, partially undressed, the artist films at close-range her own feet, knees, tights, a hand, while drawing arabesques on her body.

This experience happens at the same period as the interviews carried out by Carla Lonzi for her book Autoritratto [Self-portrait], published in 1969, which explores the orality as a subjective discourse.

After Pirelli’s early animated films, that follow a more traditional wayof production, Narciso can be appreciated as a leap forward, artistically and personally. Made in the same year as Fuses by Carolee Schneemann, the film is contemporary to the feminist mouvements at the end of the 60s, overlapping films, words and performances. It is no coincidence that the first public presentation of Narciso was held only in 1974, during ‘Art 5 ‘74’ in Basel. – Érik Bullot

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The use of the term "film-experience" in the opening credits of Narciso (1966-67) is significant. It is emphasizes the immediacy  of the scene and at the same time reminds the viewer of the "in progress" experience of a film screening, anticipating her subsequent reflections on Expanded Cinema which will take place at the end of the 1960s.

The body, which is also at the center of the contemporary reflections of the feminist movement, is intended as the privileged place for the dialogue between being a woman and the world, in an investigation that relates one's self to "the other". Fundamental for many reasons is the meeting in the first half of the sixties with Carla Lonzi, future animator of "Female Revolt" (Rivolta Femminile), which marks the gradual abandonment of painting for a more focuses attention to themes related to subjective perception and experiences. In this work, the naked artist's body appears for the first time, portrayed and turned to the viewer in an act of becoming aware of its own gestures. In the film, made in a single take and without editing, the artist resumes herself in a sort of intimate discourse, which reflects on her identity as a woman, mother and artist.  – Lucia Aspesi