MATERIALS: Canvas on protruding frame, transfer letters, painted aluminium frame
COMPONENTS: Approx. 40 screens , depending on the site specificity
Screens: 71 × 43 × 6 cm each
CATALOGUE: I_1972_700
Mauri’s first monochrome Schermi (Screens) with German wording were exhibited in April 1972 at Galleria Barozzi in Milan: ten paintings with a double layer of parchment-paper stretched over a projecting wooden frame, enclosed within a metal frame. Apparently unrelated German locutions appear under each Schermo in the lower right-hand corner: a name, a phrase, a title, a motto, an exclamation, transferred in Letraset Gothic script onto a white cardboard background. Underneath the projecting frame, an eleventh Schermo featured printing plates with rubber and wooden numbers. The exhibition took its title from one of the screens, Zeichen.ung, a pun on the German Zeichnung (drawing), which contains the root Zeichen (sign). By November that year, the paper on the frame had been replaced by a millerighe canvas, the screens had grown to forty in number and were hung one after the other in a line that ran through the rooms of the Galleria Seconda Scala in Rome, ‘intoxicating’ it with this stream of consciousness made up of names, concepts and thoughts dense with historical references. The title of the exhibition, again taken from one of the works on display, was ‘Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?/ Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?’ ‘I have been making use of German Gothic script since 1971. I acknowledge the basis of contemporary “believed thought” in this language and its ancient script. In philosophy, physical science, political theory, analysis of the psyche, literary embodiment, religion […] In 1972, I exhibited forty small screens at ‘Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?’. Each title was imprinted on the individual painting in Gothic script. Representing a whole central culture, conjugated down to detail level, in which German culture, not surprisingly, was referred to as the determining root of European thought.’1
1. F. Mauri in M. Folci, Testo di Fabio Mauri, www.maurofolci.it, 2012 (http://www.maurofolci.it/wp- content/uploads/2012/04/Fabio-Mauri.pdf).
On the use of Gothic Letraset, see also F. Mauri, ‘Note su ‘zeichen-ung’ (Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?)’, in Proposta, no. 2–3, Benevento 1972, p. 36: ‘“Gothic” because culture in Europe agitates, however it moves, more on past than present.”Gothic” Letraset humoristicly expresses current use of the past.’
1972, Milan, Galleria Barozzi, Zeichen.ung, April.
1972, Rome, Galleria Seconda Scala, Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?, opening 10 November.
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.
1997-1998, Rome, Macro – Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Arte contemporanea: Lavori in corso 2, 17 December 1997 – 10 March 1998, curated by Giovanna Bonasegale.
2003, Tourcoing-Lille, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Fabio Mauri – L’écran mental, 1 March – 27 April, curated by Dominique Païni.
2007, Rome, Galleria il Ponte, Fabio Mauri: Art Nègre, 19 June – 19 July, curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.
2008, Rome, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, 17 April – 15 May, curated by Anna Cestelli Guidi, Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2008, Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Fatto Bene!, 18 June – 3 August, curated by Marco Bazzini.
2008, Turin, Galleria Martano, Fabio Mauri: L’insolubile, 7 November – 23 December.
2013-2014, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Anni ’70. Arte a Roma, 17 December 2013 – 2 March 2014, curated by Daniela Lancioni.
2013, Milan, Fair – Galleria Michela Rizzo, Miart, 5–7 April.
2014, Buenos Aires, Fundación PROA, Fabio Mauri, 6 September – 23 November, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio.
2015, New York, Hauser & Wirth, East 69th Street, Fabio Mauri. I was not new, 5 March – 2 May, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
2019, Herning, Heart Museum, Fabio Mauri: The End, 23 March – 25 August, curated by Michael Bank Christoffersen.
Fabio Mauri, “Note su "zeichen-ung" (Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet?)”, in Proposta, no. 2–3, July–October 1972, pp. 36–37 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Der Politische Ventilator (Milan: Achille Mauri – Krachmalnicoff, 1973), pp. 74–75 (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), pp. 138–139 (ill.).
Roma in mostra 1970-1979, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Daniela Lancioni (Rome: Edizioni Joyce & Co., 1995), p. 51.
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), pp. 102–103 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’écran mental, exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing-Lille, edited by Dominique Païni (Lille, 2003), pp. 72–73 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’universo d’uso, exhibition catalogue, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2008), p. 65 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’insolubile, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Martano, Turin, edited by Liliana Dematteis (Turin, 2008), pp. 37–41 (ill.).
Giorgio Sebastiano Brizio, “Fabio Mauri alla galleria Martano, Torino”, in Arte e Critica, no. 57, Rome, December 2008, p. 119 (ill.).
Stefano Demuro, “Ben fatto Pecci”, in Left, Year XXI, no. 28, Rome, 11-17 July 2008, p. 87 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), p. 129 (ill.).
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), no. 6, p. 54 (ill.).
Anni ’70: Arte a Roma, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Daniela Lancioni (Rome: Iacobelli Editore, 2013), nn. 121–122 (ill.), pp. 210, 314.
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), pp. 150–153 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, exhibition catalogue, Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Buenos Aires, 2014), pp. 26–27, 36–37 (ill.).
Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, “Nello schermo: insonnia per diverse forme contrarie di universo”, in Hauser & Wirth, Vol. 5, Zurich, March–May 2015, p. 53 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. I was not new, exhibition catalogue, Hauser & Wirth, East 69th Street, New York (New York: Hauser & Wirth Publishers, 2015), p. 3 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. Arte per legittima difesa, exhibition catalogue, GAMeC, Bergamo, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Bergamo: GAMeC Books, 2016), pp. 10–11 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 34, p. 72 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, Contro corrente: I grandi solitari dell’arte italiana: Alighiero Boetti, Gino De Dominicis, Luciano Fabro, Fabio Mauri, Vettor Pisani, Marisa Merz (Milan: Christian Marinotti edizioni, 2020), pp. 118, 125.
