Luca Buvoli: Flying: Art Since 1980 at MoMA

Flying: Practical Training for Beginners, an artist's book by Luca Buvoli, documents his film of the same name and is one component of Buvoli's solo exhibition at the List Visual Arts Center at MIT in Spring 2000. Trapezoidal in shape, like the wing of an airplane, Flying contains two separate books under one cover: an "instruction manual" containing the film script, diagrams, animation cells, maquettes, and notes, and a smaller flipbook reproducing the final sequence of the film. Buvoli, whose artist books are avidly collected, has created a colorful, surreal film that presents the "33-Step Method" developed by the fictional professor M.a.S. to satisfy one of humanity's most ancient dreams, namely flying. Professor M.a.S. lectures at a darkened classroom using diagrams, animated films, and scientific commentary to instruct his audience on a series of movements which, when performed correctly, allow one to fly without the help of any mechanical device. Buvoli's work has been shown extensively in his native Italy and will also be familiar to American audiences from his exhibitions at the New Museum in New York, the Santa Moncia Museum of Art, and the Cleveland Center for the Arts.