MATERIALS: Canvas on protruding frame, transfer letters, painted aluminium frame
DIMENSIONS: 71 × 43 × 6 cm
INSCRIPTIONS: Signed on the verso, middle: ‘Fabio Mauri’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Private collection, Rome
CATALOGUE: S_1972_3272
Schermo (Screen) on canvas with a ‘millerighe’ texture, inserted in a box frame with cardboard backing covered in the same fabric. The title of the artwork is displayed in the bottom-right-hand corner of the cardboard with Letraset transfer letters in German Gothic script. Die Kriegswitwe is one of forty ‘thoughts’ that Mauri presented on forty screens at the ‘Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?/Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?’ exhibition-installation (inv. 700): words that were significant for various reasons, arranged in a scattered order, as if in a stream of consciousness.
1972, Rome, Galleria Seconda Scala, Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?, opening 10 November.
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.
2003, Tourcoing-Lille, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Fabio Mauri – L’écran mental, 1 March – 27 April, curated by Dominique Païni.
2007, Rome, Galleria il Ponte, Fabio Mauri: Art Nègre, 19 June – 19 July, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2008, Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, 17 April – 15 May, curated by Anna Cestelli Guidi, Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2008, Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Fatto Bene!, 18 June – 3 August, curated by Marco Bazzini.
2008, Turin, Galleria Martano, Fabio Mauri: L’insolubile, 7 November – 23 December.
2013-2014, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Anni ’70. Arte a Roma, 17 December 2013 – 2 March 2014, curated by Daniela Lancioni.
2014, Buenos Aires, Fundación PROA, Fabio Mauri, 6 September – 23 November, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2015, New York, Hauser & Wirth, East 69th Street, Fabio Mauri. I was not new, 5 March – 2 May, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2020, Paris, New Galerie, ROSTA: Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?, 12 September – 14 November, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Marcella Cossu, “Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet? / Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza? 1972”, in 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. 138–139.
