MATERIALS: Transfer letters on paper, soap and wooden frame
DIMENSIONS: 32 × 26 × 7 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1971_321
A bar of soap wrapped in a piece of paper with a stripy pattern, reminiscent of classic prisoner uniforms, exhibited in a painted wooden drawer. On the side, in transfer letters, we read the name ‘Dachau’, the town in Upper Bavaria that became infamous for hosting the first Nazi concentration camp in 1933, serving as a template for all the others. This work was part of the ‘Ebrea’ exhibition-installation (inv. 3476), rendering the dystopia of a Nazi-ruled world in which racialised bodies, reduced to mere organic matter, were commonly used to make furniture and objects. In 1975, Mauri made a seven-multiple version of the bar of soap (inv. 769).
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).
1974, Milan, Galleria Cenobio Visualità, “D.P.V.”: Ebrea, 13 February.
1978, Bologna, Galleria d’Arte Moderna and church of Santa Lucia, Metafisica del quotidiano, 1 June – 31 August, curated by Franco Solmi, Marilena Pasquali.
1993, Venice, Giardini di Castello, Italian Pavilion, XLV Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte – Punti cardinali dell’arte, 14 June – 10 October, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
1994, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, 21 June – 5 October, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu.
1997, Klagenfurt, Kunsthalle, Fabio Mauri. Male e bellezza / Das Böse und das Schöne, 24 April – 30 June, curated by Arnulf Rohsmann.
1998-1999, Rome, Spazio per l’arte contemporanea Tor Bella Monaca, 20 mostre a La Salita dal 1960 al 1978, 2 December 1998 – 10 January 1999.
2001, Warsaw, Ujazdowski Castle – Centre for Contemporary Art, Belvedere Italiano. Linee di tendenza dell’arte italiana dal 1945 al 2001, 18 June – 22 July, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2012, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fabio Mauri – The End, 19 June – 23 September, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2014, Buenos Aires, Fundación PROA, Fabio Mauri, 6 September – 23 November, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2018, New York, Hauser & Wirth, With Out, 25 January – 7 April, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Tra rivolta e rivoluzione, exhibition catalogue, Museo Civico, Bologna, edited by Franco Solmi (Bologna: Ente bolognese manifestazioni artistiche, 1972), pp. 96, 98 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Der Politische Ventilator (Milan: Achille Mauri – Krachmalnicoff, 1973), p. 45 (ill.).
Francesco Poli, “Ebrea e il Muro Occidentale di Fabio Mauri”, in XLV Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte: Punti cardinali dell’arte, exhibition catalogue, La Biennale, Venice, edited by Achille Bonito Oliva (Venice: Marsilio, 1993), pp. 48, 50.
Giovanna Le Noci, “Fabio Mauri”, in Osservare il pensiero riflesso, exhibition catalogue, Atelier Arco Amoroso and Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona, edited by Gianluca Ranzi (Grottaferrata, Rome: ArteCom editore, 2007), p. 97 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 110–111 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), p. 50 (ill.).
