PERFORMER: A boy, 2 girls
PROJECTION: Grigory Naumovich Chukhray, Ballad of a Soldier , 1959
16 mm film, black and white, sound, 88 min.
PROPS: A field kitchen, a pot of pasta and beans, jugs with water and wine, plates and crockery, a stool, a book, a 16mm film projector
DURATION: Variable, 45–90 min.
DOCUMENTATION: Photographs, video
RE-ENACTMENTS: Yes
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: P_1998_3526
A young soldier in uniform stirs a ration of pasta and beans over a slow fire on a military camp stove. A little further on, a half-naked girl sits on a stool, leafing through a wartime magazine while the film Ballad of a Soldier is projected onto her back: ‘A military man obtains leave. He quits the front through supply lines. He encounters suspended forms of life, some untouched nature, appeased hunger, some hints of cheerfulness, even finding great love, until he comes within sight of his country. War shortens the distance between life and death. That escape through disaster was an intense and secretly happy adventure. The journey was long, his time off burned through. He hugs his mother. It must all start over again.’1 Almost as if she were one of those ‘suspended forms of life’, a girl in a bathrobe appears among the audience, offering glasses of wine and portions of the rations the young man hands out to share. Their gazes briefly locking, small nods and winks between the soldier and the girl hint at an understanding, perhaps love, or of some distant memory. The audience is served, eats, drinks and takes part in the scene. Around them, neat baskets and assemblages of war objects make up the Picnic o il buon soldato exhibition/installation (inv. 3204): war is shown ‘in the order of its design, rather than its harrowing effects’,2 in a still life of a vintage flavour. The young performers, the trait d’union between past and present, restore the theme to relevance.
1. F. Mauri, ‘Introduzione’, in Fabio Mauri. Picnic o Il buon soldato, catalogue of the exhibition (Galleria La Tartaruga, Castelluccio di Pienza, 1999) edited by Plinio De Martiis, San Quirico d'Orcia, 1999, p. 7.
2. Ibid.
1998, Castelluccio di Pienza (Siena), Galleria La Tartaruga, Picnic o Il buon soldato, 5 September – 11 October, curated by Benedetta Origo, Plinio De Martiis.
1999, Barcelona, Fundació “La Caixa”, La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, 29 January – 21 March, curated by Martí Peran.
2013, Venice, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Fabio Mauri. Picnic o il buon soldato, 23 September – 14 December.
2014-2015, Rovereto (Trento), Mart – Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, La guerra che verrà non è la prima, 4 October – 20 September.
2015-2016, London, Hauser & Wirth, Fabio Mauri. Oscuramento. The wars of Fabio Mauri, 11 December 2015 – 6 February 2016, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Fabio Mauri. Picnic o il buon soldato, exhibition catalogue, Galleria La Tartaruga, Castelluccio di Pienza (Siena), edited by Plinio De Martiis (San Quirico d’Orcia, Siena: Editrice DonChisciotte, 1998), p. 7.
Fabio Mauri. La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, exhibition catalogue, Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona, edited by Martí Peran (Barcelona, 1999), p. 11, 13, 16 (ill.).
Pilar Bonet, “El buen soldado”, in Lapiz, no. 154, Madrid, 1999, p. 40 (ill.).
Angelo Trimarco, L’arte e l’abitare (Milan: Editoriale Modo, 2001), pp. 66–67.
Katja Lambert, “L'etica dell'estetica. L'arte totale di Fabio Mauri e la sua "memoria responsabile"”, in Luxflux, 2001 (http://www.luxflux.net/MEGAZ/1/articmo.htm), (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Le fotografie, edited by Laura Cherubini (Turin: Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 2005), p. 222 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 376, 378, 380 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), pp. 134–140 (ill.).
Marco Vallora, “Il tragico picnic del buon soldato di Mauri”, in La Stampa, Turin, 25 November 2013, p. 30 (ill.).
Sette, no. 38, Milan, 20 September 2013, p. 112 (ill.).
Exibart, Rome, 19 November 2013 (https://www.exibart.com/lavagna/la-lavagna-la-storia-a-due-voci-fabio-mauri-e-alfredo-jaar/), (ill.).
La guerra che verrà non è la prima, exhibition catalogue, Mart – Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto (Milan: Electa, 2014), p. 135, p. 370 (ill.).
Lea Vergine, “Tremla mq di conflitti in un tacito sbigottimento”, in Alias, Rome, 26 October 2014, (ill.).
Massimo Melotti, L’età della finzione: Arte e società tra realtà ed estasi (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2018), cover (ill.).
