MATERIALS: Concert for piano, synthesiser, sitar
PERFORMER: Antonello Neri, Maurizio Musi
PROJECTION: Elia Kazan, Viva Zapata! , 1952
16 mm film, black and white, silent, 113 min.
MUSIC: Antonello Neri
PROPS: Piano, sitar, synthesiser, wall-screen
DOCUMENTATION: Photographs
RE-ENACTMENTS: None
CATALOGUE: PR_1984_3393
In collaboration with the historic Beat ’72 venue, on 6 June 1984 Toccata su figure ostinate, a performance for piano, sitar, electronics and projections directed by Mauri with music by Antonello Neri accompanied by Maurizio Musi, was performed at the Monte Zebio Theatre in Rome. Neri’s score moved from verbal language, verses intended to ‘load even the elementary particles of the word with meaning […] A guitar enhanced by an electronic handicraft bench meets various figures or musical sculptures and then turns into a sitar. The sound becomes instrumental […] a harsh and obstinate rhythmic and musical phrasing imitating spoken language.’1 For his part, Mauri brought a screening of Viva Zapata! with Marlon Brando and Jean Peters, setting it in dialogue with Neri’s ‘stubborn notes’. ‘The artist embraces the gamble of investing the concert form with directorial form, introducing into a rigid liturgy (concerto for piano and sitar) images that are not equivalent but, if anything, identical, since they are supposed to be such, as organic linguistic sets in the analogy of the expressive universe […] What projective symbolisation decides the choice of film text? Neri, Mauri, Zapata, Brando, a series of obstinate figures for whom the author rightly accomplishes his “touch”. A concert to be seen.’2
1. A. Neri, flyer printed on the occasion of the show.
2. F. Mauri in Fabio Mauri. Opere e azioni 1954–1994, catalogue of the exhibition (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome), edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu, Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori e Carte Segrete, Rome, 1994, p. 212.
1984, Rome, Teatro Monte Zebio, Toccata su figure ostinate. Un concerto con regia, 6–8 June.
Toccata su figure ostinate (Rome: Teatro Monte Zebio, theatre programme, 1984), n.p.
Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu (Milan / Rome: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori / Carte Segrete, 1994), pp. 212–215 (ill.).
Angela Madesani, Le icone fluttuanti. Storia del cinema d'artista e della videoarte in Italia (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2002), p. 181 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), pp. 254, 304 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 251–260 (ill.).
