MATERIALS: Aniline on print, iron and lead on wood
DIMENSIONS: 76 × 97 × 4.5 cm
INSCRIPTIONS: Signed and dated on the verso, upper left: ‘Fabio Mauri 1992’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Private collection, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1992_484
A lead-covered wooden panel presents a raised inscription reading ‘Senza Arte’ (Without Art) on its right-hand side. The upper side’s protruding edge references the frames open to the sides in the ‘Interno/Esterno’ exhibition-installation (inv. 3760). In the top left, a photograph of one of the students from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, taken moments before he was shot,1 is screened by pure yellow and cherry-red aniline veils.
This artwork was part of a five-piece series constructed using the same concept (inv. 484, 994–97), in which the photographic sequence of the execution is filtered through methyl violet, pure yellow and dark blue aniline dyes. Tienanmen was made for Studenti (inv. 3758), an installation of artworks in which lead was the predominant material and the body of young individuals, with all their energy, eroticism, creativity and political involvement, the main subject.
1. See inv. 1006. The same photographs, also present in other works of Studenti, were used a few years later in Cina Asia Nuova (inv. 444).
1992, Milan, Galleria L’Eroica, Fabio Mauri. Studenti, opening 7 May.
1993, Bergamo, Galleria Elleni, Fabio Mauri: Studenti, 21 October – 30 November (travelling: 1992, Milan).
1994, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, 21 June – 5 October, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu.
2015, Paris, Fair – Hauser & Wirth, FIAC, 22–25 October.
2021, Rome, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Ciao Maschio! Volto, potere e identità dell’uomo contemporaneo, 23 June – 14 November, curated by Arianna Angelelli, Claudio Crescentini.
Mariagrazia Dilemmi, “Il tema intrecciato dell'arte: intervista a Fabio Mauri”, in Qui Bergamo, Year 2, no. 16, Bergamo, November 1993, p. 49 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu (Milan / Rome: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori / Carte Segrete, 1994), p. 256 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 304, 308–309 (ill.).
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), pp. 125–129, no. 31 (ill.).
Ciao Maschio! Volto, potere e identità dell’uomo contemporaneo, exhibition catalogue, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Rome, edited by Arianna Angelelli, Claudio Crescentini (Rome: Gangemi editore, 2021), p. 178 (ill.), p. 254.
