MATERIALS: Cigars and rubber typefaces on graphite-coated iron plate
DIMENSIONS: 57 × 37.5 × 5 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1997_519
A plastic tablet with rubber characters, placed on a rectangular plate positioned in the centre of a frame made out of iron patinated with graphite. Two broken Tuscan cigars and other typographic characters are freely arranged in the surrounding space. ‘I worked in publishing for twenty years. Daily, we corrected the proofs of a single book: Terra e/o Dio. The cigar, the wisp of smoke, in heaven and on earth, marked the time. A vice, that; time. If it doesn’t stop, it’ll kill me.’1 This work was part of Mauri’s ‘Autobiografia come teoria’ exhibition-installation (inv. 2171), in which the artist presented compositions of objects associated with his personal history on panels of identical format and craftsmanship.
1. F. Mauri, ‘Autobiografia come teoria’, unpublished exhibition text, 1997, Fabio Mauri Archive, Rome.
1997-1998, Milan, Studio Casoli, Fabio Mauri: Autobiografia come teoria, 12 November 1997 – 12 January 1998.
2010-2011, Trieste, Castello di Miramare, Fabio Mauri: Un sognatore della ragione, 3 December 2010 – 27 February 2011, curated by Roberto Alberton.
2013, Venice, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Fabio Mauri. Picnic o il buon soldato, 23 September – 14 December.
2016-2017, Bergamo, GAMeC, Fabio Mauri: Arte per legittima difesa, 7 October 2016 – 15 January 2017, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
Fabio Mauri. Arte per legittima difesa, exhibition catalogue, GAMeC, Bergamo, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Bergamo: GAMeC Books, 2016), p. 54 (ill.).
