MATERIALS: Various objects on a self-supporting iron structure
DIMENSIONS: 240 × 170 × 100 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_1999_655
117 rods on a self-supporting iron slab form a regular grid, sticking out from the top by some twelve centimetres. In no particular order, a variety of objects are arranged on them: photographs, tyres, a Red Cross bag, a water bottle, a film reel, a pack of Russian scissors, stamps, tongs, the arm from a drafting machine, several iron profiles, pieces of wood, rubber, cigars and a graphoscope opened to frame an old photograph portraying a woman. Created for the solo exhibition of this name at Fundación La Caixa in Barcelona, the work refers to an autobiographical event: ‘Here, the memory of a cousin of mine, Marcella, who as a girl was a nurse in the “International Brigades”, establishes a prior relationship with Spain. Naturally, a theme to which I have devoted much attention and work, war, including civil war, is also present. The giving and receiving of death in the name of an idea (good or bad), a utopia, or a different, high sense of justice, for which man meets death, shoots, gets shot at, in an attempt to rectify life. It is a paradox, albeit a habitual one.’1 The work was displayed in the middle of the Fundación La Caixa hall; behind it, one of the two performers from II Rancio (inv. 3526) sat on a stool; the film Ballad of a Soldier by Grigory Naumovich Chukhray was projected on their back as they flipped through a wartime magazine.
1. F. Mauri, ‘Mia cugina Marcella e la guerra civile’, 1999, unpublished exhibition text, Fabio Mauri Archive, Rome.
1999, Barcelona, Fundació “La Caixa”, La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, 29 January – 21 March, curated by Martí Peran.
2005-2006, Rome, La Nuova Pesa, Murato Vivo, 12 December 2005 – 21 January 2006, curated by Giacomo Zaza.
2012, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fabio Mauri – The End, 19 June – 23 September, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2013, Venice, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Fabio Mauri. Picnic o il buon soldato, 23 September – 14 December.
2014-2015, Rovereto (Trento), Mart – Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, La guerra che verrà non è la prima, 4 October – 20 September.
Fabio Mauri. La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, exhibition catalogue, Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona, edited by Martí Peran (Barcelona, 1999), p. 15 (ill.).
Pilar Bonet, “El buen soldado”, in Lapiz, no. 154, Madrid, 1999, p. 36 (ill.).
Angelo Trimarco, L’arte e l’abitare (Milan: Editoriale Modo, 2001), pp. 65–66.
Fabio Mauri, “L'arte e il buon vecchio”, in Espais Reals, no. 1, Universitat de Barcelona, edited by Martí Perán, Barcelona, 2002, p. 38 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), p. 376.
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), p. 145 (ill.).
Avvenire, Milan, 4 October 2014, p. 20 (ill.).
Mauri, edited by Flaminio Gualdoni (Milan: Corriere della Sera, 2022), pp. 72–73 (ill.).
