Orhan Pamuk's Moleskine Notebooks on Display at Labirinto della Masone

For the first time, Nobel Prize-winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's Moleskine notebooks are exhibited at the Labirinto della Masone in Parma, Italy. The exhibition, titled 'Orhan Pamuk. Parole e immagini' (Words and Images), curated by Edoardo Pepino, showcases twelve notebooks filled with drawings and writings that Pamuk has carried for over a decade. These notebooks capture landscapes, memories, and visions, blending visual art with narrative. An exclusive video interview with Pamuk, displayed across eight staggered screens, recreates the panoramas and atmospheres that inspire his work. The accompanying book 'Ricordi di montagne lontane' (Memories of Distant Mountains), published by Einaudi and translated by Margherita Botto, provides a broad sampling of his drawings and texts. Pamuk reveals that he believed he would become a painter between ages seven and twenty-two, but at twenty-two he abandoned painting for novel writing. In 2008, he rekindled his passion for drawing, using small notebooks. His drawing style, influenced by Anselm Kiefer, Cy Twombly, and Raymond Pettibon, is characterized by an impressionistic urgency to capture immediate sensations. Pamuk states that in these notebooks he feels completely realized creatively, as master of his own world where text and drawing perfectly merge.