Davide Toffolo. In Pasolini’s Words: Comics, Drawings, Collages

Davide Toffolo, In Pasolini’s Words offers an immersive exploration of the Friulian poet’s intellectual legacy, marking 25 years since the publication of Toffolo’s cult graphic novel Pasolini. The exhibition establishes a symbolic dialogue between the two creators, weaving together original comic plates, multimedia installations, and archival documents to underscore the enduring cultural and political relevance of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Framed around a fictional encounter with an enigmatic figure claiming to be the late filmmaker, Toffolo’s narrative avoids straightforward biography and conventional pedagogy. Instead, the exhibition charts a course through Pasolini’s distinct landscapes, vocabulary, and lifelong obsessions. Poetry, cinema, politics, the bourgeoisie, physicality, and memory intersect, suspended between raw realism and surreal vision.

The showcase features around one hundred original plates, sketches, and collages, alongside a monumental totem crafted by Toffolo. Visitors can also engage with historical archives, including original voice recordings, biographical imagery, and portraits. The exhibition is curated by Paola Bristot and Marco Minuz, in close collaboration with Davide Toffolo.

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) remains a towering figure among 20th-century Italian intellectuals. As a poet, novelist, director, and essayist, he chronicled the friction of modernisation, bourgeois complacency, and rapid social upheaval with unflinching clarity and a sharply critical eye.