PROJECTION: Grigory Naumovich Chukhray , Ballad of a Soldier , 1959
Digital, black and white, sound, 88 min., loop
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Cabinet: 190 × 197.5 × 30 cm
Projector base: 103.5 × 23.5 × 23.5 cm
EDITION NUMBER: 1/2
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PR_2006_632
Tipped over on its side, a piece of metal furniture from Rome’s Rebibbia prison lies on the ground. The doors of the hundred lockers fall naturally open – some more so, some less so – interfering with a projection of Grigory Chukhray’s film Ballad of a Soldier. ‘I chose Chukhray’s film because it is a kind of epic about war and peace. It contains all the themes, love, risk, the harshness of war, death. Although in places obscured by the doors left open, the viewer is captured by the projection. They represent the biographies of prisoners.’1 Two copies of the work were made (inv. 632, 1082).
1. F. Mauri in M.R. Sossai, ‘Il cinema installato’, in M.R. Sossai, Film d’artista, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, 2008, p. 112.
2007, Milan, Galleria Milano, Fabio Mauri: Schermi, 3 May – 15 July.
2009, Monfalcone (Gorizia), GC.AC. – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Fabio Mauri, 10 October – 1 November, curated by Andrea Bruciati.
2021-2022, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Corpus Domini: Dal corpo glorioso alle rovine dell’anima, 27 October 2021 – 30 January 2022, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2024, Rome, Galleria Richard Saltoun, Il cinema per Fabio Mauri, 19 March – 27 April, curated by Laura Cherubini.
2025-2026, Milan, Triennale Milano, Fabio Mauri. De Oppressione, 3 December 2025 – 15 February 2026, curated by Ilaria Bernardi.
Fabio Mauri. Schermi, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Milano, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Galleria Milano, 2007), no. 23 (ill.).
Ilaria Piccioni, “Fabio Mauri”, in Segno, Year XXXII, no. 214, Pescara, July–September 2007, p. 66 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, “Fabio Mauri. Un pensiero fisico”, in Flash Art, Year XL, no. 266, Milan, October–November 2007, pp. 82–83 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 451–456 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Un sognatore della ragione, exhibition catalogue, Castello di Miramare, Trieste, edited by Federica Alberton (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2010), pp. 44–45 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, “Projections”, in Fabio Mauri. Ideology and Memory, edited by Studio Fabio Mauri (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2012), pp. 94–95 (ill.).
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), p. 135, no. 37 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, Contro corrente: I grandi solitari dell’arte italiana: Alighiero Boetti, Gino De Dominicis, Luciano Fabro, Fabio Mauri, Vettor Pisani, Marisa Merz (Milan: Christian Marinotti edizioni, 2020), pp. 121–122.
Corpus Domini: Dal corpo glorioso alle rovine dell’anima, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Venice: Marsilio, 2021), pp. 126–127.
Vincenzo Trione, “L'oppressione libera tutti”, in la Lettura, Milan, 30 November 2025, pp. 42–43 (ill.).
Simone Mosca, L’orrore della guerra nell'arte di Fabio Mauri proiettata nel futuro, in la Repubblica – Milano, Rome, 3 December 2025, p. 10 (ill.).
Marcella Vanzo, “Nel buio del mondo”, in Artedossier, no. 437, Florence, December 2025, pp. 29 (ill.), 31.
