As a child in the 70's Daniela Comani travelled with her parents in their car where they used to past time jotting down the
cars that drove by. 40 years later she found one of these old notebooks and researched photographs of the cars. The project now takes the form of this artist's book, which can be seen as an interesting social and historical study on
style in the pre-globalized world and, above all, a kind of self-portrait.
In 1975 cars were made from metal, glass, some chrome and a bit of plastic. The majority had front and rear bumpers. Base models were sold without radios. GPS, which seems so crucial today, hadn't yet been invented.
As a child in the 70's Daniela Comani travelled with her parents in their car. She sat in the backseat and her favorite pastime was to list the cars that drove by, jotting down the name of the manufacturer and brand, with some additional information to make note of particular models, like “Giulia”, “500” or “Dyane”.
40 years later she found one of her old notebooks: a planner from 1975 with her list of cars. She researched photographs of the cars that were on the road in the 70's, finding neutral images selected by the manufacturers for brochures. Some of these are icons of the 70's and they define the spirit of the age, like the films, fashion and music of the time.
Born 1965 in Bologna, Daniela Comani is based in Berlin since 1989. Her multimedia installations engage in a dialog about history, language, identity, alienation and intimacy. Her work focuses on media images and text, which she manipulates through photography and video, and combines in her drawings and installations. Her work has been shown internationally and is included in the collections of Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem, Museo d'Arte Moderna, Bologna and Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.
