DIMENSIONS: Variable
Letters: 67 × 354 cm
Lamp: 170 × 30 × 30 cm
PROVENANCE: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome; Bergamin & Gomide, São Paulo
COLLECTION: Cristiano Guimarães, São Paulo
CATALOGUE: O_1990_573
An iron standard lamp is positioned next to a white wall, fitted with a switched-on light bulb. It is connected to a long electrical cable, which draws ‘On the Liberty’ on the wall in cursive script, terminating at the socket. The work was first installed in the winter garden at the home of Patrizia and Alberto Rambaldi to mark the ‘Interno/Esterno’ exhibition at Galleria Carini in Florence, which was inaugurated with a performance by pianist and composer Antonello Neri playing pieces by Erik Satie, Silvio Mix, Virgilio Mortari, Alberto Savinio, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Franco Evangelisti, Giacinto Scelsi and some of his own compositions. ‘Liberty’ suggests both the Art Nouveau style of the lamp’s base, and the Statue of Liberty’s torch, a subject dear to Mauri from the 1970s (for example, inv. 809), but also the Liberty-class transport ships, the main cargo vessels used by the Allies during World War II.
1990, Florence, Galleria Carini, Fabio Mauri: Interno / Esterno, 19 May – July (travelling: 1990, Rome).
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.
2003, Tourcoing-Lille, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Fabio Mauri – L’écran mental, 1 March – 27 April, curated by Dominique Païni.
2009, Spoleto, Rocca Albornoziana, Amore e Psiche. Storyboard di un mito, 27 June – 30 August, curated by Miriam Mirolla.
2013, Turin, Palazzo Barolo, Amore e Psiche: La favola dell’anima, 27 March – 16 June, curated by Elena Fontanella.
2015, New York, Hauser & Wirth, East 69th Street, Fabio Mauri. I was not new, 5 March – 2 May, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
2015, Istanbul, Istanbul Modern, Saltwater: a theory of thought forms. 14th Instanbul Biennial, 5 September – 1 November, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev.
2017, São Paulo, Bergamin & Gomide Gallery, Fabio Mauri: Senza Arte, 11 March – 29 April.
Fabio Mauri. Interno / Esterno, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Anna D’Ascanio, Rome and Galleria Carini, Florence, edited by Lara-Vinca Masini, Alberto Boatto (Rome / Florence, 1990), p. 62 (ill.).
Lucilla Meloni, “Fabio Mauri ”, in Opening, Year VIII, no. 23, Rome, October 1994, p. 7 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954-1994, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Marcella Cossu (Milan / Rome: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori / Carte Segrete, 1994), p. 248 (ill.).
Pluri Verso, Year 1, no. 2, edited by Mauro Ceruti, Milan, March 1996, p. 48 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), p. 118 (ill.).
Giuseppe Varchetta, Le tracce dello sguardo (Rome: Luca Sossella Editore, 2001), p. 131 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’écran mental, exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing-Lille, edited by Dominique Païni (Lille, 2003), p. 95 (ill.).
Tuzlu su / Saltwater, exhibition catalogue, Istanbul Modern, Istanbul, edited by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev (Istanbul: Yapı Kredi Publications, 2015), pp. 286–287 (ill.).
il Fatto Quotidiano, Rome, 9 September 2015, p. 23.
Lorenzo Madaro, “Lungo viaggio nell'archivio di Fabio Mauri”, in Arte, no. 581, Milan, January 2022, p. 126 (ill.).
