COMPONENTS: Iron, wood and canvas structure, 8 wooden cinema chairs, digital projector on base in iron and graphite
PROJECTION: Carl Theodor Dreyer , Gertrud , 1964
Digital, black and white, sound, 116 min.
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Structure: 310 × 185 × 290 cm
Base: 103.5 × 23.5 × 23.5 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PR_2007_635
Two pairs of wooden recliners marked by time and weather, placed inside an iron, wood and canvas structure, a small movie theatre/room where Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Gertrud was projected. Above them, the same number of chairs, laid out evenly, descend from the ceiling, upside down, turned toward the screen like a doppelganger of the small room below. The images of the black-and-white film, the Danish director’s final work, linger on the characters’ faces, capturing gazes that do not meet, irreconcilable lives running in parallel. The projection takes place in a space suspended between life and its double, alluding to the dimension that transcends it. Created in 2006 as a site-specific installation for the ‘Cielo vicino’ exhibition (inv. 662), Piccolo Cinema was revived as a stand-alone work in 2007 as part of the Inverosimile installation (inv. 986).
2007, Milan, Hangar Bicocca, Not afraid of the dark, 28 March – 27 May, curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi.
2008, Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, 17 April – 15 May, curated by Anna Cestelli Guidi, Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2009, Monfalcone (Gorizia), GC.AC. – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Fabio Mauri, 10 October – 1 November, curated by Andrea Bruciati.
2011, Bologna, Fair – Galleria Michela Rizzo, Arte Fiera, 28–31 January.
2012, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fabio Mauri – The End, 19 June – 23 September, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2014, Carrara, Palazzo Binelli, Carrara Marble Weeks, 27 June – 17 August.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, exhibition catalogue, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2008), p. 78 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 457–466 (ill.).
Alfabeta 2, Year I, no. 2, Milan, September 2010, p. 11 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), pp. 136–137 (ill.).
Lea Mattarella, “La storia come tragedia”, in Arte, no. 467, Milan, July 2012, p. 81 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 110, pp. 202–203 (ill.).
Mauri, edited by Flaminio Gualdoni (Milan: Corriere della Sera, 2022), pp. 30, 78–79 (ill.).