MATERIALS: Transfer letters on paper, soap, wooden frame
DIMENSIONS: 32 × 26 × 7 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_1971_3787
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 ‘Treblinka’, the town in Upper Bavaria that became infamous for hosting a Nazi concentration camp. 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.
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.
1992, Milan, Studio Casoli, Fabio Mauri. 3 performances, 8 April, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.
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.
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.).
