Immersion: Fabio Mauri, Luna (1968)

Luna [Moon] was shown for the first time from 4 to 8 pm on 25 May 1968 as part of the “Teatro delle mostre” [Theater of Exhibitions] that Plinio De Martiis conceived and mounted at his Galleria La Tartaruga in Rome. The project heralded a new concept of the art exhibition as a short-lived event lasting just a few hours. Each evening a different artist would present an installation that involved visitors’ physical participation. In Luna, Fabio Mauri’s contribution, visitors entered a lunar space and walked through, sat or stretched out on, even swam in the Styrofoam beads of the artist’s moon dust, which produced a soft rustle when rubbed. The moon was both the promise and objective of a space race that was to culminate the following year in the Apollo 11 mission and its moon landing, an event broadcast live on television screens around the world. Luna the immersive artwork was a sensory experience that redid the darkness of space, the silence of the cosmos, and zero gravity. Breaking down the limits between the real and the virtual, Luna projects audience-actors into an artificial world, making them experience an unknown and unpredictable terrain.

An installation presented as part of the exhibition
Immersion. The Origins: 1949-1969
Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, 4.11.2023-3.3.2024