MATERIALS: Free-standing wooden frame, transparent plastic sheet, photographic print on PVC, audio device
DIMENSIONS: 290 × 240 × 100 cm
PHOTOGRAPHY: Elisabetta Catalano
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: I_2005_642
Invited to be part of the ‘Pasolini and Rome’ exhibition, Fabio Mauri took and printed a large- format photo of the two of them at the Safa Palatino film studios in Rome in 1971, from a dress rehearsal for the performance Che cosa è il fascismo (inv. 3474). The image is in a nearly three- metre-high frame made from building materials taken from ongoing work at the artist’s studio: wooden pallets and plastic sheeting soiled with paint. Like a huge table, a domestic object dedicated to memory and affection, the work is supported at the back to be free-standing. Hidden behind the photograph, an audio device emits Pier Paolo Pasolini’s voice, reading the poem La Guinea, recorded for RCA in 1962 before being published in written form. The two intellectuals’ long friendship was also the subject of the Intimità di Pasolini artist video (inv. 3656), displayed in the same exhibition. Mauri recalls that, ‘stretched out like the sky of meaning, accessible and unassailable, poetry was the field of our intimacy, the evolved and absolute soul of our “common” friendship’.1
1. F. Mauri, ‘Intimità di Pasolini’, in Pasolini e Bologna, a cura di D. Ferrari e G. Scalia, Edizioni Pendragon, Bologna 1998, pp. 119–24.
2005-2006, Rome, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Pasolini e Roma, 21 October 2005 – 22 January 2006.
2007, Roseto degli Abruzzi (Teramo), Medieval village, Montepagano, Trasalimenti: Castellarte 07, 15 July – 5 September, curated by Gabriele di Pietro.
2008-2009, Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, 1988: vent’anni prima, vent’anni dopo, 1 November 2008 – 15 February 2009, curated by Marco Bazzini.
2012, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fabio Mauri – The End, 19 June – 23 September, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2014, Buenos Aires, Fundación PROA, Fabio Mauri, 6 September – 23 November, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2015, Venice, Giardini di Castello, Central Pavilion, 56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte – All the World’s Futures, 9 May – 22 November, curated by Okwui Enwezor.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2018, Castelbasso (Teramo), Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, 22 July – 2 September, curated by Laura Cherubini.
2022-2023, Rome, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Pasolini Pittore, 28 October 2022 – 16 April 2023, curated by Silvana Cirillo, Claudio Crescentini, Federica Pirani.
Pasolini e Roma, exhibition catalogue, Museo di Roma in Trastevere, Rome, edited by Enzo Siciliano, Federica Pirani (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2005), p. 142 (ill.).
Culture Hero / Heroj Kulture, exhibition catalogue, Museum of Modern Art, Rijeka, edited by Branko Franceschi (Rijeka: MMSU, 2007), p. 27 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), p. 148 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), p. 157 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, exhibition catalogue, Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Buenos Aires, 2014), pp. 60–61 (ill.).
56. Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte: All the World’s Futures: Mostra, exhibition catalogue, La Biennale, Venice, edited by Okwui Enzewor (Venice: Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia / Marsilio, 2015), pp. 132 (ill.), 615.
Corriere della Sera, Milan, 6 May 2015, p. 37 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (Teramo), edited by Laura Cherubini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2018), p. 57 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 109, p. 198 (ill.).
Mu6: Fabio Mauri a Castelbasso, Year XIII, no. 36, L'Aquila, August 2018, p. 2 (ill.).
After Pasolini: Visions of Today, exhibition catalogue, Center for Contemporary Art, The Ancient Bath, Plovdiv, edited by Bettina Steinbrügge, Benjamin Fellmann (Plovdiv: Art Today Association – Center for Contemporary Art, 2020), p. 126–127 (ill.).
Mauri, edited by Flaminio Gualdoni (Milan: Corriere della Sera, 2022), pp. 76–77 (ill.).
Andrea Cortellessa, “Novissimi Ludi”, in Andrea Cortellessa, Una ragione di più per andare all'inferno: Vedere, Pasolini (Rome, 2025), pp. 299–302, 320 (ill.).
Vincenzo Trione, “L'oppressione libera tutti”, in la Lettura, Milan, 30 November 2025, pp. 42–43.
