MATERIALS: Projection onto milk
PROJECTION: Sergej Ejzenstejn, Aleksandr Nevskij , 1938
16 mm film, black and white, sound, 112 min.
DIMENSIONS: Approx. 150 × 50 × 400 cm
Bucket: 60 × 40 × 40 cm
Metal Base: 28.5 × 29 × 52 cm
Milk: Approx. 40 litres
Film case: 37.5 × 42.5 × 5.5 cm
Projector with profiler: 92 × 20 × 63 cm
Speaker: 25 × 12 × 15 cm
Easel: 78 × 48 × 110 cm
PROVENANCE: The artist
COLLECTION: Fabio Mauri Estate, Rome
CATALOGUE: PR_1975_919
An installation consisting of a 16mm-film projector resting on a tripod that, through a cardboard shaping tube, projects the Sergei Eisenstein film Alexander Nevsky onto the white surface of about forty litres of milk. The liquid is contained in an old milkmaid’s bucket, resting on the ground on a metal base that keeps it at an angle. Filmed in the late 1930s, the film is set in thirteenth-century Russia, telling the story of the exploits of Prince Alexander Nevsky who led an army of peasants against the Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire, routing them on Lake Peipus, in an allegorical and anti-Nazi vein. Mauri wrote: ‘I really like allegorical filmography, as Eistenstein’s Alexander Nevsky can be: there is a whole anti-war rhetoric at play here, composed with such finesse, skill, such childlike epicness in a way, that one cannot help but admire this extreme bravura.’1 He adds: ‘Only cinema can come up with a scene like the Teutonic knights’ charge. Of course, Italian painting has produced extraordinary battle scenes in Paolo Uccello, Leonardo and Michelangelo, but the cavalcade of these Expressionist, helmeted warriors is a wondrous thing. And so if I don’t understand the meaning entirely, I grasp a piece of it sufficient for my understanding.’2 Projected onto the milk, the images transform into organic, living matter: ‘The work is created in such a way that people passing by, rubbing against it, make the milk move in a ripple that seems natural or produced by some hidden fan, rather than being made by people setting it in motion, gently imprinting a kind of allegory of an ideal biological unity among good humans.’3
1. F. Mauri in M. Silvi, ‘Conversazione con Fabio Mauri’, in M.R. Sossai, Film d’artista, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, 2008, p. 112.
2. Ibid.
3. F. Mauri in Perchè non parli? Le discipline dell’arte contemporanea raccontate dagli autori, edited by G. Di Pietrantonio, F. Guerisoli, G. Scardi, Silvia Editrice, Cologno Monzese, 2010, p. 193.
1975, Rome, Teatro in Trastevere, Senza Ideologia: Azione di Fabio Mauri dal ciclo Oscuramento, 9 December.
1976, Milan, Galleria Toselli, Senza, 18 May.
1978, Vancouver, Pumps Gallery, Without, 24 September.
1978, Toronto, A Space, Fabio Mauri at A Space, 11–12 October.
1980, Rome, Spazio Uno, 17 film d’artista, 6–14 May.
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.
1996, Los Angeles, MOCA – The Museum of Contemporary Art, Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film since 1945, 16 March – 28 July, curated by Kerry Brougher.
1996-1997, Columbus, Wexner Center for the Arts, Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film since 1945, 20 September 1996 – 5 January 1997, curated by Kerry Brougher (travelling: 1996, Los Angeles).
1997, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, La stanza degli specchi: Arte e film dal 1945, 2 July – 1 September, curated by Kerry Brougher (travelling: 1996, Los Angeles).
1997-1998, Chicago, MCA’s Contemporary Art Circle, Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film since 1945, 11 October 1997 – 21 January 1998, curated by Kerry Brougher (travelling: 1996, Los Angeles).
2003, Tourcoing-Lille, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Fabio Mauri – L’écran mental, 1 March – 27 April, curated by Dominique Païni.
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.
2019, Venice, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Mauri | Muntadas, 8 May – 10 September, curated by Laura Cherubini.
2020, Paris, New Galerie, ROSTA: Perché un pensiero intossica una stanza?, 12 September – 14 November, curated by Olivier Renaud-Clément.
“Senza ideologia di Fabio Mauri”, in Flash Art, no. 60–61, Giancarlo Politi Editore, Milan, December 1975, p. 15.
Fabio Mauri, “Proiezioni su oggetti, Una mostra di Fabio Mauri a Milano”, in Domus, no. 562, Milan, September 1976, p. 53.
Fabio Mauri, Le proiezioni 1970-1978 (Macerata / Falconara: La nuova foglio editrice - piano inclinato / Galleria del Falconiere, 1978), n.p. (ill.).
Philip Monk, “Fabio Mauri at "A Space"”, in Artists Review, no. 3, Toronto, 27 October 1978, p. 2.
René Blouin, “Fabio Mauri”, in Parachute, no. 14, Montréal, 1979, p. 28 (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. 155–161 (ill.).
Fermata d’autobus, exhibition catalogue, Spazio Flaminio Atac, Rome, edited by Achille Bonito Oliva, Renato Mambor (Rome: Carte Segrete, 1995), p. 89 (ill.).
Massimo Mininni, Arte in scena: La performance in Italia 1965-1980 (Ravenna: Danilo Montanari Editore, 1995), p. 135.
Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film since 1945, exhibition catalogue, MOCA – The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, edited by Kerry Brougher, Russell Ferguson (New York: Monacelli Press, 1996), pp. 95–98 (ill.).
La stanza degli specchi: Arte e film dal 1945, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, edited by Kerry Brougher, Rosella Siligato (Rome: Nuova Àrgos Edizioni, 1997), p. 29.
Marina Patriarca, “Una conversazione con Fabio Mauri”, in Giornale di Duna, no. 4–5, Rome, January–February 1999, p. 3 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. L’écran mental, exhibition catalogue, Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains, Tourcoing-Lille, edited by Dominique Païni (Lille, 2003), pp. 54, 56 (ill.).
Adachiara Zevi, “L'arte ‘saggistica’ di Fabio Mauri”, in L’architettura – cronache e storia, no. 575, Rome, 2003, p. 671 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Le fotografie, edited by Laura Cherubini (Turin: Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 2005), pp. 220–221 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, “L'artista, l'opera”, in Reset, no. 100, Milan, March–April 2007, p. 81 (ill.).
Maria Rosa Sossai, Film d’artista. Percorsi e confronti tra arte e cinema (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2008), p. 112.
Fabio Mauri, Scritti in mostra. L’avanguardia come zona 1958-2008, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: il Saggiatore, 2008), pp. 44–47 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri, Io sono un ariano (Milan: Lampi di stampa, 2009), pp. 138, 141, 146–147 (ill.).
Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, “Fabio Mauri. Arte e cinema (intervista)”, in Perché non parli? Le discipline dell’arte contemporanea raccontate dagli autori, edited by Giacinto di Pietrantonio, Francesca Guerisoli, Gabi Scardi (Cologno Monzese: Silvia Editrice, 2010), p. 194.
Alfabeta 2, Year I, no. 2, Milan, September 2010, p. 22 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, “Conversazioni. Ricordando Fabio Mauri”, in Flash Art International, Year XLIII, no. 275, Milan, November–December 2010, p. 67 (ill.).
Fabio Mauri. The End, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale, Milan, edited by Francesca Alfano Miglietti (Milan: Skira, 2012), pp. 134–135 (ill.).
Laura Cherubini, “Projections”, in Fabio Mauri. Ideology and Memory, edited by Studio Fabio Mauri (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2012), pp. 88–89 (ill.).
Elisabetta Catalano, Work with Fabio Mauri, edited by Laura Cherubini (Milan: Maretti Editore, 2013), pp. 92–93 (ill.).
Riccardo Venturi, “Fabio Mauri: cinema a luce solida”, in Flash Art, Year 49, no. 321, Milan, 2015, p. 44 (ill.).
Valérie Da Costa, Fabio Mauri: le passé en actes (Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2018), no. 117, p. 208 (ill.).
Mauri / Muntadas, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice, edited by Laura Cherubini (Imola: Manfredi Edizioni, 2019), pp. 67–69 (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), p. 117.
