MATERIALS: Projection on bus windscreens and performer
PERFORMER: One young woman
PROJECTION: Jean-Luc Godard , Alphaville , 1965
Digital, black and white, sound, 99 min.
PROPS: One bus, two signs, one projector
DOCUMENTATION: Photographs, testimony of the performer Lara Casaccio
RE-ENACTMENTS: None
CATALOGUE: PR_1995_1099
Fermata d’autobus was the title of an exhibition conceived by Renato Mambor and curated by Achille Bonito Oliva at the former ATAC (Azienda Tramvie e Autobus Comunale) depot in Piazzale Flaminio, Rome. In the appealing early-twentieth century structure, which once housed horse-drawn streetcars, six artists were given six old buses to work with. From inside ‘his’ bus, Mauri projected Jean-Luc Godard’s film Alphaville on the matted windshield. On the opening day, a young woman sat in the driver’s seat, the projection beam making her shadow stand out against the glass, merging into the flow of cinematic images. The audience was invited to board the Alphaville and experience the work from two points of view: ‘the bus, whose outside becomes a screen for Godard’s film, a sci-fi reflection on industrial society, while the inside, where the images are reversed and the woman is driving, becomes a vehicle again, projected toward a different space-time system.’1 ‘I considered the bus to be a rocket. The Godard film I screen inside is really a science-fiction film built out of old things. I had that wondrous insight back in the day, when it came out. It fits my feeling of time and things.’2
1. C. Colasanti, ‘Fermata d’autobus’, in Flash Art, no. 196, Milan, 1996, p. 119.
2. F. Mauri in Fermata d’autobus, catalogue of the exhibition (Spazio Flaminio ATAC, Rome, 1995–96), edited by A. Bonito Oliva, Carte Segrete, Rome, 1995, p. 87.
1995-1996, Rome, Spazio Flaminio Atac, Fermata d’autobus, 13 December 1995 – 6 January 1996, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
Fermata d’autobus, exhibition catalogue, Spazio Flaminio Atac, Rome, edited by Achille Bonito Oliva, Renato Mambor (Rome: Carte Segrete, 1995), p. 87, 95 (ill.).
Luciano Marucci, “Fabio Mauri ”, in Juliet, no. 77, Trieste, April–May 1996, p. 45 (ill.).
La stanza degli specchi: Arte e film dal 1945, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Kerry Brougher, Rosella Siligato (Rome: Nuova Àrgos Edizioni, 1997), p. 3 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Picnic o il buon soldato, exhibition catalogue, Galleria La Tartaruga, Castelluccio di Pienza (Siena), edited by Plinio De Martiis (San Quirico d’Orcia, Siena: Editrice DonChisciotte, 1998), p. 47 (ill.).
Floriano De Santi, “L'arte di Fabio Mauri: un inventario per dare al presente il senso della vita”, in Teléma, Year VI, no. 20, Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Rome, Spring 2000, p. 120 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Le fotografie, edited by Laura Cherubini (Turin: Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 2005), p. 223 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, exhibition catalogue, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2008), cover (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), p. 47 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 341–346 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), pp. 114–117 (ill.).
