120578

Andrea Mastrovito 

This work,expressly made for Casa Testori, has deep roots, in fact it rises from an idea for a lightbox entitled My Birthday that I presented in Ginevra a couple of years ago, during an unfortunate trip with Zizi and Eugenia. The work was representing myself, with a gun in my hand, shooting skyward and thus redrawing, with the back light, the precise position of the constellations that could be seen from Bergamo the 12th May 1978, my birthday. During the several inspections at Casa Testori, I was always pointed out the importance of the big room upstairs, where Testori was conceived, born, where both his parents passed away and where, after his mather’s death, he moved. It seemed natural to me to think to repropose that concept of birth, but extending it to the whole room and at the same time making it global and intimate, through the videoprojection in two separate rooms. In the room next to that big patriarchal room, in the dark, here I am (video projected and animated) repeatedly shooting to the opposite wall, the one next to the big room where, as the shots go on, and thus drawing on the ceiling that precise position of constellations that could – indeed – be seen from Lombardy the day of my birth. This goes well, I thought. But I needed something more, and so I started to plick fleas off young Testori’s pictures, until I looked up the biography and read: Giovanni Testori (Novate Milanese, 12th May 1923 – Milano, 16th March 1993). Astonished, I realized that I no longer have to look for anything, we were born on the same day.