A site-specific installation created for the Umanesimo/Disumanesimo nell’arte europea 1890–1980 (Humanism/Dehumanism in European Art 1890–1980) event staged in Florence in 1980, featuring ten installations by ten contemporary artists arranged along a historical route in places indicative of an ‘ambiguous condition regarding definition of a particular moment of crisis such as was represented, even during its glory days, by Humanism, which holds within itself the terms of its own reverse: Dehumanism.’1 Mauri chose the basin at Palazzina Reale in Santa Maria Novella central station for his intervention. A Fascist piece of architecture inaugurated in 1935, the Palazzina Reale hosted a number of events, including Hitler’s 1938 visit among a riot of coats of arms, symbols, flags and parades. Forty-two years later, Mauri dyed the water of the fountain red and, in place of the Tricolour, ran up the flagpole a white painter’s canvas that ‘descended until it was completely submerged in the water dyed the colour of blood, settling to the bottom gradually soaked red.’2 Citing this 1980 installation, in 1994 Mauri dyed the water in the courtyard fountain at the Galleria Nazionale di Roma red, displaying a photograph of the work in Florence next to it, this time for an exhibition entitled ‘Opere e Azioni 1954–1994’.

1. Umanesimo / Disumanesimo, press release, 1980.
2. M. Cossu, ‘Vasca della Palazzina Reale. Umanesimo / Disumanesimo’, in Fabio Mauri. Opere e azioni 1954–
1994, catalogue of the exhibition (Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome), edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu, Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori e Carte Segrete, Rome, 1994, p. 196.