INV. No 443
Chernobyl
2005 (1990)
INSTALLATIONS WITH PROJECTION
ENGLISH TITLE: Chernobyl
COMPONENTS: Painting on wooden panel with iron frame,wooden cabinet, various objects. Digital projector on graphite-coated iron base
PROJECTION: Bompiani Family , 1930s
Digital, black and white, silent, loop
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Cabinet: 200 × 100 × 32 cm
Base: 103.5 × 23.5 × 23.5 cm

INSCRIPTIONS: Signed, dated and titled on the verso, middle: ‘“Senza Arte”: Fabio Mauri 1990 / Natura morta’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PR_2005_443
NOTE:

A 1990s painting from the series Senza Arte (Without Art), with raised letters and chalk-based paint, resting on a wooden cabinet. Two glass electrical insulators rise up from the iron frame in the upper-right-hand corner; the cover of an old green metal stove dominates the composition, shoehorned into the lower left of the frame, on top of a cabinet next to a bottle, a lamp, an inner tube inserted into a spring, and an analogue voltage gauge. Through the cabinet’s half-open door, we catch a glimpse of artist’s tools and working materials arranged over four shelves: rectified trichloroethylene, Cervione glue beads, virgin wax, white chalk-based paint, rice flour, cellulose, a sprayer, linoleum stencils, charcoal, cloth-wrapped wood, posters, Polaroids of model cars, a ceramic pitcher, a small box of dried leaves, a pen, several sponges, cloths, felt … The work was first exhibited in 2005 at Galleria La Nuova Pesa in Rome, entitled Chernobyl. In front of the work, resting on an iron column, a digital projector broadcast footage of the Bompiani family in the 1930s, animating the lower part of the piece of furniture that, with one door open and one closed, fitted the video format exactly.


Exhibitions:

2005-2006, Rome, La Nuova Pesa, Murato Vivo, 12 December 2005 – 21 January 2006, curated by Giacomo Zaza.

2007, Milan, Nuovo Centro Internazionale Brera,
Maestri e allievi: Fabio Mauri e Ivan Barlafante, 9 May – 8 June, curated by Alice Spadacini.

2007, Roseto degli Abruzzi (Teramo), Medieval village, Montepagano,
Trasalimenti: Castellarte 07, 15 July – 5 September, curated by Gabriele di Pietro.

2009, Venice, Galleria Michela Rizzo,
Fabio Mauri: etc., 4 June – 20 September, curated by Martina Cavallarin.

2009, Monfalcone (Gorizia), GC.AC. – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea,
Fabio Mauri, 10 October – 1 November, curated by Andrea Bruciati.

2014, Carrara, Palazzo Binelli,
Carrara Marble Weeks, 27 June – 17 August.

2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre,
Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.


Bibliography:

Gigliola Lai, “Fabio Mauri - Schermi”, in Trasalimenti: progetto per l’arte contemporanea, exhibition catalogue, Medieval village, Montepagano, Roseto degli Abruzzi (Teramo), edited by Gabriele Di Pietro (Roseto degli Abruzzi: Castellarte, 2007), p. 36 (ill.).

Fabio Mauri. Etc., exhibition catalogue, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice, edited by Vittorio Urbani (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 26–27 (ill.).


Chernobyl, 2005 (1990)
Photo: Sandro Mele, 2023
Chernobyl, 2005 (1990)
Photo: Sandro Mele, 2007
Chernobyl, 2005 (1990)