A clothes rack, consisting of two stands and a horizontal iron rod, holds up five torso-shaped silhouettes covered in lead, attached by a hooked end at neck-level. Three of the five silhouettes wear lead-moulded undergarments, respectively panties, a bra, and a tank top, the only connotative elements on what would otherwise be neutral torsos. In its display element, Studenti al negozio recalls the Senza Titolo performance (inv. 3325) that Mauri presented a month earlier at Studio Casoli in Milan, in which the artist referred to the ‘current disappearance of the body as the basis of identity, transferred into simulacra, into a multitude of coverings’, going so far as to conclude that ‘The body has become a dummy of the body.'1

1. F. Mauri, 'Senza Titolo', 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. 259.