MATERIALS: Bathtub, towel, oil on canvas, tiles
DIMENSIONS: 250 × 217.5 × 68 cm
Frame: 177.5 × 217.5 × 4.5 cm
Bathtub: 75 × 112 × 63 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1990_552
A bathtub installed in front of a canvas painting, framed by a passe-partout made of square- shaped white tiles. The painting depicts a screen broadcasting a diagnostic image of a man’s torso and, further down, two hands typing on a computer keyboard. In the catalogue to the ‘Interno/Esterno’ exhibition-installation, of which the work was part, Alberto Boatto wrote: ‘The bathtub is the place of man’s nakedness. The figure probed by the check-up, traced in red and blue on the panel, denounces the state of health of a biotype of our fellow man: a technological healthiness that refers to a death that is also obsequious to programmes of technology.’1 He concluded: ‘Art is by no means a blocked circuit but an open one, in which food and rest, illness and lingering are questioned before the mirror, in short legitimately taking part in the succession of days that wear out lives, lived out between the kitchen, the bathroom and the living room.’2
1. A. Boatto in Fabio Mauri. Interno / Esterno, catalogue of the exhibition (Rome, Galleria Anna D'Ascanio and Florence, Galleria Carini), edited by Lara-Vinca Masini, Alberto Boatto, Rome / Florence, 1990, p. 9.
2. Ibid., p. 11.
1990, Rome, Galleria Anna D’Ascanio, Fabio Mauri: Interno, 9 March – 21 April.
1990, Florence, Galleria Carini, Fabio Mauri: Interno / Esterno, 19 May – July (travelling: 1990, Rome).
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.
1997-1998, Rome, Macro – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Arte contemporanea: Lavori in corso 2, 17 December 1997 – 10 March 1998, curated by Giovanna Bonasegale.
Fabio Mauri. Interno / Esterno, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Anna D’Ascanio, Rome and Galleria Carini, Florence, edited by Lara-Vinca Masini, Alberto Boatto (Rome / Florence, 1990), p. 39 (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. 246 (ill.).
Arte contemporanea: Lavori in corso 2, exhibition catalogue, Macro – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, edited by Giovanna Bonasegale (Rome: Edizioni De Luca, 1997), p. 45 (ill.).
