A Compelling Force

Between 1971 and 1979, while working on his experimental film ORG, Fernando Birri produced an extraordinary number of paintings in two key locations in Rome: his Studiolo in Trastevere and the countryside home of actor Mario Girotti (aka Terence Hill) in Grottarossa, on the outskirts of Rome. This was a period of intense artistic activity during which painting served as a counterpoint to the endless process of film editing. As completing ORG stretched on for years, Birri produced a steady stream of paintings, completing them quickly with agile techniques using pastel, ink, pencil, watercolor, airbrush and enamel.

These works reflect a moment of thematic expansion in Birri’s practice, addressing sexuality, spirituality, or cinema. His visual language was also shaped by the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the influence of the sexual revolution, the space race, the protests of May 1968 and the death of the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. However, while many intellectuals debated their role in political action, Birri turned inward and immersed himself in the solitude of the editing room and the immediacy of painting.

The title of this section, A Compelling Force, refers to a concept developed by psychoanalyst George Groddeck, who Birri abstractly portrayed in his artwork. Groddeck’s investigation into the unconscious forces that drive human behavior resonated with Birri’s own experience—compelled during a moment of crisis to paint without pause. This period captures the tension between the decade-long labor of ORG and the speed of his pictorial output, between introspection and the urgency of a convulsed era—forces that shaped both his film and his paintings.