MATERIALS: English-style baby carriage, leather, watch; base in wood, iron and glass; brass plate
DIMENSIONS: 141.1 × 113.5 × 50.3 cm
Carriage: 121 × 113.5 × 50.3 cm
Base: 20.1 × 100.3 × 55 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_1971_309
English-style baby carriage with a leather cover placed on a wood, iron and glass base, bearing a brass plaque inscribed with the work’s title. The space between the four wheels features a black canvas at the centre, on which the words ‘THE END’ stand out in white. Hanging from the pushbar is a pocket watch bearing an effigy of Benito Mussolini;1 the same detail appears in the photograph of the invitation to the ‘Ebrea’ exhibition at Galleria La Salita in Rome in 1971. The work was part of the ‘Ebrea’ exhibition-installation (inv. 3476) that rendered the dystopia of a Nazi-ruled world in which, reduced to mere organic matter, racialised bodies were commonly used to make furniture and objects.
1. The original clock, a Fascist relic, has been lost and was reconstructed in January 2018.
1971, Venice, Galleria Barozzi, Ebrea, opening 1 October, curated by Furio Colombo, Renato Barilli.
1971, Brescia, Galleria Acme Studio, Ebrea, opening 30 October (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1971, Parma, Galleria La Steccata, Ebrea, opening 18 November (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1971, Rome, Galleria La Salita, Ebrea, opening 9 December (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1972-1973, Bologna, Museo Civico, Tra rivolta e rivoluzione – Immagine e progetto, November 1972 – January 1973, curated by Franco Solmi, Concetto Pozzati.
1974, Milan, Galleria Cenobio Visualità, “D.P.V.”: Ebrea, 13 February.
2018, New York, Hauser & Wirth, With Out, 25 January – 7 April, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Fabio Mauri, Der Politische Ventilator (Milan: Achille Mauri – Krachmalnicoff, 1973), pp. 40–41 (ill.).
Tommaso Trini, “Fabio Mauri: Il linguaggio è guerra”, in Data, Year IV, no. 11, Milan, Spring 1974, p. 52 (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. 126 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), p. 114 (ill.).
