MATERIALS: Stamp on photographic reproductions on Poliplat
COMPONENTS: 88 photographs, two text plates in Italian and two in English
DIMENSIONS: Variable
Photographs: 40.5 × 28.5 cm each
INSCRIPTIONS: Photographs signed and dated on the recto, lower right: ‘FM74 ’, signed on the verso, middle: ‘m’
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: I_1975_912
An installation consisting of two texts and eighty-eight photographs stamped, initialled and mounted full-bleed on cards measuring 40.5 x 28.5 cm, hung side by side, forming a line that extended across adjoining walls to create a kind of room. Mauri took the images from wartime magazines after meticulously collecting and analysing them, selecting photos and details reprinted and presented with a circular stamp that reads ‘Linguaggio è guerra / Language is War’. The two versions of the installation differ in the number of photographs and subjects portrayed (inv. 307).
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.
2003, Tourcoing-Lille, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Fabio Mauri – L’écran mental, 1 March – 27 April, curated by Dominique Païni.
2025-2026, Milan, Triennale Milano, Fabio Mauri. De Oppressione, 3 December 2025 – 15 February 2026, curated by Ilaria Bernardi.
Filippo Menna, “Linguaggio è guerra”, in Fabio Mauri, Linguaggio è guerra, edited by Filiberto Menna (Rome: Massimo Marani Editore, 1975), (ill.).
Marcella Cossu, “Linguaggio è guerra. 1975”, in 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. 167–174 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), pp. 12, 68–72 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’écran mental, exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing-Lille, edited by Dominique Païni (Lille, 2003), pp. 80–83 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), pp. 36–39, 262–266 (ill.).
Federica Boràgina, Fabio Mauri. Che cosa è, se è, l’ideologia nell’arte (Catanzaro: Rubbettino editore, 2012), pp. 86–88, n. 24 (ill.).
Paolo Fabbri, “Linguaggio è guerra”, in Fabio Mauri. Arte per legittima difesa, exhibition catalogue, GAMeC, Bergamo, edited by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio (Bergamo: GAMeC Books, 2016), pp. 68–85 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri 1968-1978, exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Malvina Menegaz, Castelbasso (Teramo), edited by Laura Cherubini (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2018), pp. 70-–73 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), nn. 80–85, pp. 146-151 (ill.).
Paolo Fabbri, “Fabio Mauri. Le langage c’est la guerre”, in Paolo Fabbri, Le sphinx incompris. Vingt et un essais sémiotiques sur l’art (Limoges: Pulim, 2023), pp. 119–124 (ill.).
