De-Constructed Pianos Made Into Sculptures

[C. Dianne Zweig Editor's Desk]

The Open Piano or "Piano Liberado" by Mauro FF

These assemblage sculptures are made from deconstructed pianos , using only piano parts , wood , strings , hammers , screws. I try to give a second life to these complex and beautiful musical instrument that other wise are destined to the grave yard.
I HAVE ALLOWED MY IMAGINATION FFREE PLAY
I often remember the first show " Piano liberation " i did awhile back in San Francisco . I was living in the Soma district, in the pre South Park digital mecca days. This was before the dot com came and went around , the Twin Towers still stood , and Americans were not as dislike in the world as they are today.
On that day , after finishing my first piano opening deconstruction , or liberation as it came to be known today , after the piano was taken apart and a pile of its insides was laying in disarray in front of me , a five gallon bucket of white latex paint was dumped from a second story mezzanine onto the liberated piano, covering it in white paint . It was thus canonized : "EL PIANO LIBERADO "

Problems soon arose . All those on the front rows of the audience got splashed and splattered with fresh wet paint. Those who weren't splattered with it stepped on it on the floor, leaving a continuos path of footprints all over the long hallway from my studio to the lobby entrance and to the street. The next day i had to paint the entire hallway floor.
So , few were not too happy with the climax of the show , especially a young lady who studied piano . She was actually a bit upset at the travesty of destroying such a sophisticated and elegant musical instrument. Back then i didn't have the right vocabulary to try and explain the surge that pushed and fueled my creative explorations.
Now , stealing words from that great visionary painter Gustave Moreau: " I also , all that i've sought i have found , in small proportion no doubt, but in forms perfectly pure and flawless, for i have never looked for dreams in reality or for reality in dreams " I have allowed my imagination ffree play and i have not been led astray by it .

Mauro ffortisimo (1962) Argentinean/Italian/American. Grew up in Argentina, where interest in art and music lead him to study classical piano and visual arts. Emigrated to California in 1981 to further his artistic explorations, taking classes in print making, sculpture and painting in numerous academies: San Mateo College, Art Institute, and Berkeley Extension. Founding member of "849 Folsom Music" a 13 member music and spoken word performance troop that brought vital energy to the San Francisco "South Market" artist underground scene in the pre-dot com years of the late 80's.

Founding member of the Enso Art Collective and the Miles Davis Memorial Hall, Mauro has been investigating sounds with the deconstruction of pianos, becoming more able to expand the 12-tone scale. He does not subscribe to the romantic notion of a solitary artist, a suffering individual, hidden in a state of despair, creating work that only few can appreciate, instead Mauro travels the world, looking to the mundane, the sacred and the original with the same eyes, and listening to the music of diverse cultures, bringing it all home to work with it's particular way of assimilation making art and music available to the community. When not traveling, Mauro lives in Half Moon Bay, California, where with wife/artist Carrie Hollister and nine cats, runs the Enso Yoga Studio and Art Center.

http://www.mauroffortisimo.com/bio/index.html

Mauro ffortisimo