MATERIALS: Stamp on photographic reproductions on cardboard
COMPONENTS: 102 photographic plates, two text plates in Italian, and two in English
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Photographs: 41.8 × 29.8 cm each
INSCRIPTIONS: Photographs signed and dated on the recto, lower right: ‘FM74’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: I_1975_307
An installation of four text plates and 102 photographs stamped, initialled and mounted full-bleed on cards measuring 40.5 x 28.5 centimetres, hung side by side to form a line extending across adjoining walls to surround the visitor. Mauri took the images from wartime magazines after meticulously collecting and analysing them, selecting photos and details reprinted and presented with a circular stamp that reads ‘Linguaggio è guerra / Language is War’. ‘These are details from war magazines. Stamped, a meaning is added to them. An undue appropriation occurs. Initially taken by photographers present at events, reproduced in propaganda contexts as partisan communications, then collected in the more neutral form of history, again taken out of their archaeological contexts, cut out, i.e., revised according to a new thesis, equally divided between language-based signs and the men involved in those signs, repurposed in sequences expressing an interpretive idea in a linguistic way, the use of photos in an only seemingly peaceful way… “Language is War” discusses language in a state of war.’1 Mauri first presented the work in 1975 at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, accompanied by the book of the same name (inv. 3483) published by Massimo Marani editore with texts by Mauri and Filiberto Menna. A second, reduced version of the installation, consisting of eighty-eight photographs (inv. 912), was later staged.
1. F. Mauri, ‘Linguaggio è guerra’, 1975, unpublished text, Fabio Mauri Archive, Rome.
1975, Bologna, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Fabio Mauri. Linguaggio è guerra, 18 June – 27 July.
1976, Parma, Museo Civico, Foto and Idea, April–May.
1978, Vancouver, Western Front Gallery, Language is war, 19 September – 1 October.
1978, Toronto, A Space, Fabio Mauri at A Space, 11–12 October.
1999-2000, Lecce, Castle of Charles V, Spazi in luce: da Caravaggio oltre Fontana, 23 December 1999 – 27 February 2000, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2000, Rome, Istituto Austriaco di Cultura, Fuori di qui, 19 June – 7 July, curated by Cecilia Casorati.
2005-2006, Commenda di Pré (Genoa), Galleria Leonardi V–Idea e Piazza della Commenda, War word world: Hiroshima Nagasaki 6-9, 7 December 2005 – 5 January 2006, curated by Gianfranco Pangrazio.
2010-2011, Trieste, Castello di Miramare, Fabio Mauri: Un sognatore della ragione, 3 December 2010 – 27 February 2011, curated by Roberto Alberton.
2013, Milan, Università Bocconi, 1966-1976 Milano e gli anni della grande speranza, 23 January – 10 April, curated by Ezio Rovida.
2015-2016, London, Hauser & Wirth, Fabio Mauri. Oscuramento. The wars of Fabio Mauri, 11 December 2015 – 6 February 2016, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
2016, Milan, FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, L’inarchiviabile, 8 April – 15 June, curated by Marco Scotini, Lorenzo Paini.
2016-2017, Bergamo, GAMeC, Fabio Mauri: Arte per legittima difesa, 7 October 2016 – 15 January 2017, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2018, Castelbasso (Teramo), Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, 22 July – 2 September, curated by Laura Cherubini.
2019, Herning, Heart Museum, Fabio Mauri: The End, 23 March – 25 August, curated by Michael Bank Christoffersen.
2020, Florence, Museo del Novecento, Fabio Mauri: Solo, 23 January – 30 April, curated by Giovanni Iovane, Sergio Risaliti.
2023, Rivoli (Turin), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Artisti in guerra. Da Francisco Goya a Rahraw Omarzad e Nikita Kadan, 5 March – 19 November, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marianna Vecellio.
2023-2024, Rivoli (Turin), Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Fabio Mauri. Experiments in the Existence of Evil, 16 December 2023 – 24 March 2024, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Sara Codutti, Marianna Vecellio.
Tommaso Trini, “Fabio Mauri: Il linguaggio è guerra”, in Data, Year IV, no. 11, Milan, Spring 1974, p. 51 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, “Linguaggio è guerra”, in Fabio Mauri, Linguaggio è guerra, edited by Filiberto Menna (Rome: Massimo Marani Editore, 1975), (ill.).
Philip Monk, “Fabio Mauri at "A Space"”, in Artists Review, no. 3, Toronto, 27 October 1978, p. 3.
L’Immagine, edited by Giovanni Damiani (Milan: Pragma Libri / Carlini editore, 1989), p. 40 (ill.).
Vittoria Coen, “Fabio Mauri. Linguaggio e verità”, in Titolo, Year IV, no. 14, Perugia, Winter 1993, pp. 40–41 (ill.).
Achille Bonito Oliva, La dimora dei corpi gravi. Tributo a Masaccio, exhibition catalogue, La Salerniana, Erice (Milan: Charta, 1994), p. 75 (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), pp. 167–174 (ill.).
Fax Heart: International Fax Art Project, exhibition catalogue, Galerija VLV, Novi Sad (Novi Sad: Galerija VLV, 1995), p. 54 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), pp. 12, 68–72 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, exhibition catalogue, Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona, edited by Martí Peran (Barcelona, 1999), p. 14 (ill.).
Spazi In Luce: da Caravaggio oltre Fontana, exhibition catalogue, Castle of Charles V, Lecce, edited by Achille Bonito Oliva (Milan: Centro Arte Maiocchi, 1999), pp. 50–51 (ill.).
Fuori di qui, exhibition catalogue, Istituto Austriaco di Cultura, Rome, edited by Cecilia Casorati (Rome, 2000), n.p. (ill.).
Percorso vita, Year III, no. 4, Bologna, November 2000–April 2001, 2000, p. 11 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, “Il valore dell'arte”, in Percorso vita, Year V, no. 2–4, Bologna, April–December 2002, p. 6 (ill.).
Utopie quotidiane: L’uomo e i suoi sogni nell’arte dal 1960 a oggi, exhibition catalogue, PAC Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, edited by Vittorio Fagone, Angela Madesani (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2002), pp. 128–129.
Fabio Mauri. L’écran mental, exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing-Lille, edited by Dominique Païni (Lille, 2003), pp. 80–83 (ill.).
War word world: Hiroshima Nagasaki 6-9, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Leonardi V–Idea e Piazza della Commenda, Commenda di Pré (Genoa), edited by Gianfranco Pangrazio (Genoa: Neos edizioni, 2005), p. 41 (ill.).
Viana Conti, “Warwordworld. Hiroshima Nagasaki”, in Segno, no. 206, Pescara, January–February 2006, p. 53.
Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Manuale delle passioni: Incontri, scontri e tensioni di arte contemporanea (Milan: Skira, 2007), p. 196.
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), pp. 36–39, 262–266 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 169–176 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Un sognatore della ragione, exhibition catalogue, Castello di Miramare, Trieste, edited by Federica Alberton (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2010), pp. 27–29 (ill.).
Elena Volpato, “Fabio Mauri: starting from the end”, in Mousse, no. 29, Milan, Summer 2011, pp. 145–147 (ill.), 150.
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), pp. 86–88, no. 24 (ill.).
Paolo Fabbri, “Linguaggio è guerra”, in Fabio Mauri. Arte per legittima difesa, exhibition catalogue, GAMeC, Bergamo, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Bergamo: GAMeC Books, 2016), pp. 68–85 (ill.).
Doppiozero, 13 December 2016 (https://www.doppiozero.com/fabio-mauri-diffidenza), .
Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (Teramo), edited by Laura Cherubini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2018), pp. 70–73 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), nn. 80–85, pp. 146–151 (ill.).
Mu6: Fabio Mauri a Castelbasso, Year XIII, no. 36, L'Aquila, August 2018, pp. 2–3 (ill.).
Maurizio Cattelan, “A comversazione between Maurizio Cattelan and Fabio Mauri”, in Ursula, no. 6, Hauser & Wirth Publishers, Spring 2020, pp. 92–93 (ill.).
Valentina Silvestrini, “Il disegno fra memoria e trauma. Fabio Mauri a Firenze”, in Artribune, 8 March 2020 (https://www.artribune.com/arti-visive/arte-contemporanea/2020/03/il-disegno-fra-memoria-e-trauma-fabio-mauri-a-firenze/), (ill.).
Maurizio Cattelan, Index, edited by Roberta Tenconi, Vincente Todolí, Fiammetta Griccioli (Venice: Marsilio, 2021), pp. 465–466 (ill.).
Paolo Fabbri, “Fabio Mauri. Le langage c’est la guerre”, in Paolo Fabbri, Le sphinx incompris. Vingt et un essais sémiotiques sur l’art (Limoges: Pulim, 2023), pp. 119–124 (ill.).
