The Zaire performance was named after the home country of a choir in an African Christian community who enlivened liturgies at a church near Mauri’s Rome studio. Fascinated and intrigued by the timbre and sounds of their voices, the artist asked the choir to sing at one of his performances. Mauri left them completely free to sing according to their own rituals and traditions, without any direction, meddling or rehearsal. In Zaire, the performances coincide with ritual, which is ‘exposed’ unaltered, an animated objet trouvé, re-presenting the artist’s encounter with an intimately African spirituality. ‘Excuse me, I’m white. The Zaire choir behind me is not a professional choir, it is, I would say, merely a real one. They sing out their prayers with mind and body. Something that impressed me. The white West does not know how to do this. Here unity is not the result of study; it is customary. Very natural, as you can see. No rehearsals here. This performance is not concocted. It is seen and taken (my studio in Rome overlooks the church where the Zaire choir gathers twice a week). At first, I thought it was a record, then I went down to see: I could hear talking among the notes, a guttural ‘rapping’ through which the choir conversed. I saw, I asked Father Bita and Aknma Leon, the President, and here we are. No rehearsals.’1 In 1995, in L’Aquila, the choir performed during the ‘Ad usum fabricae’ exhibition in front of the organ in the church of San Domenico, in dialogue with the installation L’arte ha persino incertezza, non la musica (inv. 899). The performance was repeated in Rome two years later, in the church in Piazza Pasquino, where curators, critics and art-world insiders invited to attend the performance became bystanders to a ritual.

1. F. Mauri, Zaire, 1997, unpublished text, Fabio Mauri Archive, Rome.