MATERIALS: Cut-out on doormat
DIMENSIONS: 202 × 310 × 3.6 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_2001_873
A precursor to Mauri’s series of large Zerbini (inv. 695), L’ospite armeno was made in 2001 for the exhibition of the same name at Palazzo Zenobio, Venice. The work consisted of two overlapping mats, of which only the upper one is engraved, differing from both previous Zerbino ariano works (inv. 605), in which the words were written by burning the fibre, and from the later series of large doormats whose sentences completely punctured the carpeting. Laura Cherubini wrote: ‘The Zerbini are basically the final possible metamorphosis of the screen […] The phrase that makes the mat meaningful is no longer superimposed writing; form and content are inseparable.’1
1. L. Cherubini, ‘Zerbini’, in F. Mauri, Ideologia e memoria, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 2012, p. 157.
2001, Venice, Giardini di Palazzo Zenobio and Loggia del Temanza, L’ospite armeno, 10 June – 4 November.
2012, Milan, Palazzo Reale, Fabio Mauri – The End, 19 June – 23 September, curated by Francesca Alfano Miglietti.
2016-2017, Naples, Museo Madre, Retrospettiva a luce solida, 26 November 2016 – 6 March 2017, curated by Laura Cherubini, Andrea Viliani.
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), p. 143 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, “Doormats”, in Fabio Mauri. Ideology and Memory, edited by Studio Fabio Mauri (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2012), p. 157.
Mauri, edited by Flaminio Gualdoni (Milan: Corriere della Sera, 2022), pp. 74–75 (ill.).
