The Island of Dr. Mastrovito

"When Mastrovito visited the Island's “enchanted landscape [and saw] its empty houses and its only inhabitants (squirrels, ducks and other small birds and rodents),” he conceived of the possibility of mixing up all these three elements, to recreate a new order in Governors Island's (still) life.”
His starting points for this site-specific work are the two most common forms of home recreation - books and television. The title of his installation refers to H. G. Wells' famous novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, in which the archetypal “mad” scientist experiments upon animals in order to give them human traits. In this “Island,” the artist substitutes himself for the doctor, trying to instill a new life into that which was once alive in a different way (books from paper, paper from wood, and wood from trees). Mastrovito imagines that the outside fauna take control of the abandoned house and become its proper inhabitants. Approximately 700 books were brought under the artist’s knife to cut out real-size images of animals. This trompe-l'oeil, or paper diorama, also suggests the strength of images, the infinite possibilities that knowledge – through books – can give us in order to create and re-create the world that we can only imagine."

Manon Slome on "The Sixth Borough" press release, June 2010.

Technical Sheet

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, installation view at MUDAC, Lausanne, 2012

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2012 installation at MUDAC, Lausanne

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2010 installation at Governors Island, NY

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2011 installation at Casa Testori, Novate Milanese (MI)

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2010 installation at Fondation Bullukian, Lyon

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2012 installation at Musée des beaux-arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds

The Island of Dr. Mastrovito, detail from 2020 installation at Palazzo Fabroni, Pistoia