MATERIALS: Wood, iron, brass, string, candles
DIMENSIONS: 180 × 67.3 × 43 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo, Rome
CATALOGUE: O_1971_914
Two groups of thirty-one candles, hanging from a branched wooden cross that straddles an upper transom, suspended above a mirror-polished metal top from which they are spaced, a few inches apart. A tubular mount with four feet at its base supports the sculpture, which rises to a total of six feet in height. At the base of the cross, just above the shelf, a white Letraset inscription bears the words ‘Vera cera ebrea’. Similar to the other works in the ‘Ebrea’ exhibition-installation (inv. 3476), the caption evokes misgivings about the true nature of the wax, rendering the dystopia of a world in which racialised human bodies are reduced to raw material for the production of common objects.
1971, Venice, Galleria Barozzi, Ebrea, opening 1 October, curated by Furio Colombo, Renato Barilli.
1971, Brescia, Galleria Acme Studio, Ebrea, opening 30 October (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1971, Parma, Galleria La Steccata, Ebrea, opening 18 November (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1971, Rome, Galleria La Salita, Ebrea, opening 9 December (travelling: 1971, Venice).
1972-1973, Bologna, Museo Civico, Tra rivolta e rivoluzione – Immagine e progetto, November 1972 – January 1973, curated by Franco Solmi, Concetto Pozzati.
1974, Milan, Galleria Cenobio Visualità, “D.P.V.”: Ebrea, 13 February.
1974, Bologna, Galleria de’ Foscherari, Ghenos Eros Thanatos, 15 November – 16 December, curated by Alberto Boatto.
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.
1994, London, Smith’s Galleries, Four Italian Masters of Contemporary Art, 20 October – 6 December.
1998-1999, Rome, Spazio per l’arte contemporanea Tor Bella Monaca, 20 mostre a La Salita dal 1960 al 1978, 2 December 1998 – 10 January 1999.
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.
2018, New York, Hauser & Wirth, With Out, 25 January – 7 April, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
Tra rivolta e rivoluzione, exhibition catalogue, Museo Civico, Bologna, edited by Franco Solmi (Bologna: Ente bolognese manifestazioni artistiche, 1972), pp. 96, 99 (ill.).
Elvira Cassa Salvi, “Ebrea di Fabio Mauri”, in NAC, no. 1, Edizioni Dedalo, Milan, January 1972, p. 16 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Der Politische Ventilator (Milan: Achille Mauri – Krachmalnicoff, 1973), p. 51 (ill.).
Ghenos Eros Thanatos, exhibition catalogue, Galleria de’ Foscherari, Bologna, edited by Alberto Boatto (Bologna, 1974), p. 41 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri: Male e bellezza – Das Böse und das Schöne, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle, Klagenfurt, edited by Arnulf Rohsmann (Klagenfurt, 1997), p. 11 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), p. 52 (ill.).
Alberto Boatto, Ghenos eros thanatos e altri scritti sull’arte 1968-1985, edited by Stefano Chiodi (Rome: L’Orma editore, 2016), pp. 45, 98 (ill.).
