Mario Airò, Untitled (1993-2001)

The spot is indicated by four posts, each with a press button, along the cycling path, but the work does not appear until someone presses a button. From between the trees, a male voice recites a poem:

Temples and wild lands will be mine
When I name them with my tongue
According to the proper ritual words

Of whatever kind that truthful tree is,
Which I have heard pronounced by my own voice
Temple and wild lands be mine up to that point on the left

Of whatever kind that truthful tree is,
Which I have heard pronounced by my own voice
Temple and wild lands be mine up to that point on the right

Between these points,
I have pronounced according to the proper ritual words,
Temples and wild lands be mine
To place, observe and interpret

Mario Airò developed this sound sculpture in 1993 for the exhibition Sonsbeek 93. The work is based on a formula with which haruspices (diviners) consecrated a part of the sky in Roman times before reading it to foretell the future. In a book on urban planning and the concept of the city, Airò had read a passage describing how a diviner determined whether a piece of land would be suitable to build a city on. To do so, he would climb on a hill and demarcate a part of the sky with the aid of a few trees. Then he would recite a formula and read the flight of birds in the demarcated area to know whether the spot was a good one for a city. The future of the piece of land was determined by the formula. Those are the words that can be heard between the trees in Zeewolde.

Sound, light and words
Mario Airò’s ‘sculptures’ assume many different forms. They can be objects, but they are often immaterial, composed of sound, light and words. He refers to literature and history, especially the history of art, and to everyday objects, without insisting on an unequivocal interpretation. For the Venice Biennale of 1997, he illuminated a room with diffuse blue light, played soft background music and put in a functioning soft-drink vending machine (title, date). In the installation Pulse (2000), a stroboscopic lamp illuminates a solar panel on the wall. The power this generates is sufficient to operate a CD player. The rhythm of the music – experimental music with text fragments taken from myths on the creation of the world – determines the flickering of the lamp.

Mario Airò’s art plays on the spectator’s experience. His interventions on a site (whether a private room or in the public space) affect your perception of it. The sound sculpture in Zeewolde was not originally made for this location, but nevertheless it gains significance here. It would be hard to find a place better suited to this voice consecrating the land and looking at the future than here, on this new land that was shaped and organised so recently.

Annick Kleizen

1 Jan Brand, Catelijne de Muynk, Valerie Smith (eds.), Sonsbeek 93, catalogue of the exhibition ‘Sonsbeek 93’, 5 June–26 September 1993, Arnhem, p. 233.
2 Sonsbeek Park in Arnhem is the location of open-air exhibitions of contemporary art which are held at irregular intervals. ‘Sonsbeek 93’ ran from 5 June till 26 September 1993. See also note 1.

Mario Airò, Untitled
1961, Pavia, Italy
Geluiddsculptuur (Sound Sculpture, 1993–2001)
Audio equipment operated by press buttons mounted on 4 black-and-white posts
Location: Zeewolde, De Verbeelding Route
De Verbeelding Collection

Website Mario Airò at Galery Greta Meert