Campione 2011

Campione
Wall, window, tree and sound, 7 x 2 m
Centre des Arts Pluriels d'Ettelbrück, Luxembourg, 2008

Campione, in Italian, has two meanings: champion and sample.

When the window in the wall opens, a song escapes from the small room behind the triple glass separation and fills the surrounding space. Not any song, of course. It is a 1962 Italian love song performed by Ana Maria Quaini or Mina Mazzini, one of the most famous Italian singers of all time. She was known as an emancipated woman, one of the first female pop stars in Italy. Yet the song chosen for this installation is soft and sensuous, belonging to a later period in Mina’s career. Il cielo in una stanza is the title of the song: The Sky in a room.

Il cielo in una stanza (Mina 1962)

Quando sei qui con me
questa stanza non ha più pareti,
ma alberi alberi infiniti.
Quando sei qui vicino a me
questo soffitto viola
no non esiste più.
Io vedo il cielo sopra
A noi

The sky in a room (Mina 1962)

When you are here with me
this room has no more walls
but trees... infinite trees.
When you are here near me
this purple ceiling,
doesn’t exist anymore.

I see the sky above us…