MATERIALS: Painted-metal sculpture
DIMENSIONS: 213 × 99 × 87 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_1968_879
This metal sculpture is the sole example of the Cinema a luce solida constructed from a material other than methacrylate; it has no internal light source. The work was made for the Fifth Gubbio Art Biennial in 1969 – it still has a label from the event – in the Il metallo come pura espressione d’arte section of which, curated by Filiberto Menna, Mauri participated. The various Cinema a luce solida consist of a column with a triangular base, at the top of which the apex of an isosceles pyramid was grafted onto a parallelepiped representing a movie projector, projecting toward a cornice-screen hung on the wall, simulating the projection beam. Here, mirror-polished metal renders the brightness that, in other Cinema a luce solida, is generated by an internal lamp whose light radiates onto a semi-transparent methacrylate surface.
1969, Gubbio, Convent of San Francesco, V Biennale d’Arte di Gubbio, 19 July – 13 September.
2014, Buenos Aires, Fundación PROA, Fabio Mauri, 6 September – 23 November, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2019-2020, Milan, Museo del Novecento, Nuovi Percorsi, 23 February 2019 – 8 March 2020, curated by Anna Maria Montaldo, Danka Giacon, Iolanda Ratti.
2023, Zurich, Hauser & Wirth, Fabio Mauri. Amore mio, 30 September – 23 December, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
2024, Vicenza, Basilica Palladiana, POP/BEAT – Italia 1960-1979, 2 March – 30 June, curated by Roberto Floreani.
Fabio Mauri, exhibition catalogue, Studio d’Arte Toninelli, Rome, edited by Cesare Vivaldi (Rome: Studio d’Arte Toninelli, 1969), pp. 81–95.
Il “Mana” di Nancy Marotta, edited by Stefano Marotta, Andrea Orsini (Rome: Es Architetture, 1995), n.p. (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), p. 62.
Fabio Mauri, exhibition catalogue, Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Buenos Aires, 2014), p. 27.
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 8, p. 22 (ill.).
Museo del Novecento: Un nuovo racconto, exhibition catalogue, Museo del Novecento, Milan, edited by Anna Maria Montaldo, Danka Giacon, Iolanda Ratti (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2021), pp. 250, 255, 329 (ill.).
POP/BEAT – Italia 1960-1979, exhibition catalogue, Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza, edited by Roberto Floreani (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2024), p. 153 (ill.).
