Disco Moon | Vicenza

DISCO MOON

July 20, 2009 , Piazza San Lorenzo, Vicenza

Conceived for Effimero. Sistemi di contemporaneo

Curated by Alberto Zanchetta

Presented in 2009, EFFIMERO. Sistemi di contemporaneo was a collective project conceived as a tribute to the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing. Curator Alberto Zanchetta invited a group of contemporary artists to engage with a single point of departure: Bruno Munari’s Aconà Biconbì, a modular structure that each artist was asked to reinterpret. Every participant received the same set of Munari’s modules, yet each transformed them into a distinct artistic statement—reconfiguring the original design into site-specific works temporarily installed in Piazza San Lorenzo, Vicenza.

For Andrea Morucchio, the moon landing itself was not a historical fact but a cultural fiction—a myth that continues to shape human imagination. His installation, DISCO MOON, thus became not a commemoration, but a meditation on belief, myth, and the tension between faith and evidence.

Reworking Munari’s Aconà Biconbì modules, Morucchio created a constellation of nineteen circular elements made of cardboard, wood, and photographic prints. Embedded in silver discs and arranged radially across the square, these “moons” evoked orbiting spheres—archetypal, reflective forms mirroring both the sky and the ornate façade of the adjacent church.

As the artist explains, the work sought to trigger “iconographic short-circuits between Catholic and pagan symbols,” pointing simultaneously to the origins of religious sentiment and to humanity’s fascination with the cosmos and its supposed influence.

In this way, DISCO MOON unfolded as an experiential space rather than a simple homage. It reflected on the circle as a timeless symbol—Plato’s image of perfection, the mandala of neo-pagan ritual, the infinite cycle of life and belief. The work was animated not by celestial destiny, but by the presence and movement of passers-by, whose reflections completed the piece.

Transforming Piazza San Lorenzo into a luminous field of mirrors, Morucchio’s DISCO MOON turned the urban space into a temenos—a sacred threshold where art, architecture, and human perception converged. His own “moon landing,” staged in Vicenza’s heart on July 20, 2009, invited viewers to reconsider the fine line between reality and myth, between what we believe and what we see.

Exhibiting artists: Daniele Bacci, Maurizio Battaglia, Andrea Bianconi, Simone Cesarini, Silvia Chiarini, Arnold Mario Dall’O, Francesco De Molfetta, Antonio De Pascale, Armida Gandini, Eloisa Gobbo, Giuliano Guatta, Giacomo Lion, Vincenzo Marsiglia, Andrea Morucchio, Maria Elisabetta Novello, Luca Piovaccari, Giordano Pozzi, Laura Pugno, Michael Rotondi.