MATERIALS: Pickaxe with leather scabbard and cloth on iron plate
DIMENSIONS: 100 × 70 × 40 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1998_534
A short-handled pickaxe, its blade protected by a leather sheath, handle wrapped in white cloth webbing, hangs from an iron plate. The implement is referred to as a picca in the title, a wartime term for a thrusting weapon in varying shapes and sizes. This work was made for ‘Picnic o Il buon soldato’ (inv. 3204), an exhibition-installation composed of ‘solitary and isolated objects placed in a narrative sequence, of which the titles form an essential part. Mainly military in origin, the exhibited objects showcase a distorted landscape, their functional intended use and assumption as ready-mades of moveable meaning formally estranged.’1
1. D. Scudero in 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. 18.
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. La meva cosina Marcella i la guerra civil, exhibition catalogue, Fundació “La Caixa”, Barcelona, edited by Martí Peran (Barcelona, 1999), p. 21 (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. 366 (ill.).
