PERFORMER: Cha Landres, Dimitri Tamarov
PROPS: 2 armchairs, a rug, a wicker basket with carnations, 3 photographs, Dramophone drawing (inv. 296)
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Armchairs: approx. 115 × 78 × 80 cm
Photograph: 200 × 95 cm
Photograph: 194.5 × 96.5 cm
Photograph: 91 × 83 cm
Basket: 30 × 60 × 45 cm
Drawing: 70 × 70 cm
DURATION: Unknown
RE-ENACTMENTS: None
PHOTOGRAPHY: Elisabetta Catalano
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: I_1994_3328
Given the impossibility of representing the Dramophone performance from 1976 (inv. 1136) due to Feodor Chaliapin Jr.’s passing (he had been the star character at the ‘third station’), the work was revived in installation form for Mauri’s major retrospective at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna di Roma. Three large photographs, one for each ‘station’, adorned the walls, along with a drawing of the disc-world (inv. 296); on a rug, the armchair on which Chaliapin previously sat dialogued with a second floral armchair, while a basket of red carnations cited the second room’s setup. For the event, Bella Levensohn, aka Cha Landres, was called upon to ‘activate’ the installation: seated in the second chair, she read a text in memory of her friend Chaliapin, conversing in Russian with actor Dimitri Tamarov, who intervened from the audience.
Dramophone was part of a core of actions that could not be replicated because they were designed for ‘well-known people, who do not play the role of others and are therefore not actors but themselves, in the place where the action places them’.1
1. F. Mauri, ‘Azioni: note’, in Oscuramento, catalogue of the exhibition (Studio d’arte Cannaviello, Rome, 1975), Rome, 1975, n.p.
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.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2018, Castelbasso (Teramo), Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, 22 July – 2 September, curated by Laura Cherubini.
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. 175–180 (ill.).
Roma in mostra 1970-1979, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Daniela Lancioni (Rome: Edizioni Joyce & Co., 1995), p. 99.
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), p. 46 (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. 130–131.
Elisabetta Catalano, Le fotografie, edited by Laura Cherubini (Turin: Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 2005), pp. 224–229 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), pp. 48–51 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 177–182 (ill.).
Elena Volpato, “Fabio Mauri: starting from the end”, in Mousse, no. 29, Milan, Summer 2011, p. 143 (ill.).
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), pp. 65–68, no. 11, p. 66 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), pp. 42–47 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (Teramo), edited by Laura Cherubini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2018), pp. 30–33 (ill.).
Marcella Vanzo, “Il corpo si fa poesia. Fabio Mauri e le sue prime performance”, in Artedossier, no. 387, Florence, May 2021, p. 42 (ill.).
