Fellini – The Exhibition, Amsterdam

Federico Fellini is renown for being one of the most image-defining masters of post-war Italian cinema, creating hits such as La strada, La dolce vita and . Fellini – The Exhibition expands the influential filmmaker’s universe and uncovers the sources of his fertile imagination. 20 years after his death, EYE, Amsterdam opens this exhibition on 30 June bringing Fellini’s powerful work under the spotlight. Featured within Fellini are large projected film fragments, photographs, archive documents and posters – from the EYE collection among others.

Arguably one of the most famous filmmakers to come from Italy, Fellini had a career that spans forty years. Those 40 years yielded titles that have become forever ingrained in the memory of every film buff. The bellowing escape artist from La Strada (1954), the tormented high-society reporter from La dolce vita (1960), the tyrannical director with a whip from (1963) or the woman who lovingly clasps the young boy from the village between her large breasts: these figures have developed into archetypes of a universe that we have come to call “Fellinian”. The filmmakers universe often featured his alter ego, played by Marcello Mastroianni on several occasions.

Fellini – The Exhibition is arranged as a visual laboratory, organised to reveal the many aspects of the filmmaker’s points of inspiration and how he created a fictional image of himself and Italian life. Generally the showcase highlights the way in which he was able to subvert the accepted linear narrative structure in his films and also present existential questions in a flippant way. Within the film fragments, drawings and photographs, who constantly gave new interpretations to his youth, his dreams and the unconsciously evoked images and stories.

Fellini – The Exhibition, 30 June – 22 September, EYE, IJpromenade 1, 1031KT Amsterdam.

Credits
1. Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni, La dolce vita, 1960 (Photo: Pierluigi, Christoph Schifferli Collection, Zürich, with thanks to the Fondation Pathé).