MATERIALS: Gesso and paper on wood, oil on canvas, wooden and iron frame
DIMENSIONS: 70.5 × 101 × 9.5 cm
INSCRIPTIONS: Signed, titled and dated on the verso, upper left: ‘Fabio Mauri / “Quadro quadro” / 1990 / Roma ’
PROVENANCE: The artist; Antonio Caruana, Rome; Auction House Finarte (Rome, November 2008); collezione privata, Terni; Auction House Dorotheum (Vienna, November 2016)
COLLECTION: Private collection, Rome
CATALOGUE: PT_1990_575
An elaborately framed, antique oil painting portraying two young people about to exchange a kiss, hung against a monochrome white painting on panel framed in iron with open sides, as in the Interno/Esterno series of artworks (inv. 3760). White-relief letters on monochrome panel form the word ‘SENZARTE’ (WITHOUT ART), not without irony, highlighting the difference between the two paintings. In Autocolloquio, the artist wrote: ‘It is evident that the “painting” genre has never closed, that is, it’s not a genre, except for some centuries past, the last, the penultimate ones. It can host and be hosted by everything. The expression, I say, is unique. It really is a thing. The very idea of form.’1
1. F. Mauri, ‘Autocolloquio’, in F. Mauri, Scritti in mostra: L’avanguardia come zona 1958–2008, edited by F. Alfano Miglietti, il Saggiatore, Milan, 2008, p. 83.
1990, Rome, Galleria Anna D’Ascanio, Fabio Mauri: Interno, 9 March – 21 April.
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.
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. 23 (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. 244 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), p. 115 (ill.).
