FABIO MAURI

Rome, 1926



February 3, 2021 - March 13, 2021

In this upcoming exhibition, Galleria Michela Rizzo questions the concept of ‘value’ and its many aspects, such as the market, economy, power, time, and currency. Money Money Money, curated by Elena Forin, is conceived to offer a reflection on this crucial topic through different points of analysis, highlighting themes that can be useful in this investigation: from the stage of economic and political power; to the imaginaries related to money; the visual presence of art; and its conceptual and market forms. The exhibition sets up a journey where artists from different generations with different approaches, languages, and interests explore the wide concepts of money and value.

Antoni Muntadas’ The Bank (1997), part of the On Translation cycle, ponders how quickly a certain sum of money can vanish through a progressive system of currency exchanges. Moreover, his reinterpretation of the European flag includes coins inside the twelve yellow stars to emphasise the purely economic and political nature of the European Community.

The implosion of the financial market and the consequential bankruptcy at the beginning of the new millennium are narrated by Nanni Balestrini: fragments of Giorgione's The Tempest (1502-1503) are mixed with ripped dollars and random letters, becoming traces of the remains of a humanity unable to decipher, re-elaborate and withstand the impact of its own actions.

Andrea Mastrovito through his reinterpretation of a classic horror movie modified frame by frame, Nysferatu (2018), questions the dangerous short circuit in the US society caused by the implementation of aggressive economic policies. Through the installations Bar C33 (2015) and Il critico come artista (2016) he criticises the precariousness of the present, where even the educational sphere relies on money.
In the series West (2014-2022), Francesco Jodice creates an "observation deck on the last great Western empire”, in which American history — from the great gold rush to the 2008 financial collapse — is rendered through images that document both the geological majesty of Western America and its current contradictions; ranging between militarisation and nuclearisation campaigns, technological development and the Hollywood dream. The five exhibited works invite us to take a journey to the end of the heroic saga of liberalism.

Ryts Monet isolates and re-elaborates the natural elements, like plants and flowers, and architectural elements printed on banknotes, which visually amplify the paradoxes on how countries choose to represent themselves through currencies. These works show on one hand the strive for a monumentalisation of the international image through money, and, on the other, the short circuit created by the recurring presence of natural specificities.

Aldo Runfola questions the genesis the artworks through money, which assume the task of tracking the artist’s movements: after throwing coins on the canvas, he follows the marks left by that gesture, creating the composition though the links between the given points.

The art market is not overlooked in the exhibition: Fabio Mauri’s Serie Sociale (1974-1975), consisting of fifty monochrome sheets of different colours, challenges the concept of the value of an artwork, as their prices double up day by day, reaching astronomical figures by the end of the exhibition. Lucio Pozzi, through his Red Planets, works on the ideas of presence, emptiness, and distance, increasing the price of the remaining painted boards each time one is sold. The commercial aspect shows its limits in quantifying the true value of art: both of the artists decide to increase the prices based on a purely arbitrary decision, as the two works are composed by almost identical pieces.

Cesare Pietroiusti’s Mangiare denaro - un’asta/Eating Money - an Auction, and, more in general, his Paradoxycal Economies series, focuses on the theme of exchange. This performance - conceived and performed with Paul Griffiths and held in 2005 at Viafarini, Milan - staged an auction where the public was allowed to offer an amount equal to the sum of two banknotes: the performers swallowed the highest bid and promised to return the money to the winner after evacuated, together with a certificate. From a simple transaction medium, money became a crucial part of the artistic process, as the action coincided with its economic dimension.

Therefore, Money Money Money tries to shed lights on those dynamics that are often latent or hidden behind the surface of banknotes and coins, developing an itinerary through artworks that call for a reconsideration of the concept of ‘value’.

A special thanks goes to Simone Frittelli.

Fabio Mauri was born in Rome in 1926. His activity was vast and multifaceted, encompassing theater, performance, installation, painting, theory, and teaching, conceived as elements of a single expressive field.

From 1957 to 1975 he worked at the publishing house Bompiani in Rome. In 1979 he was appointed Professor of Aesthetics of Experimentation at the Academy of Fine Arts in L’Aquila, where he taught until 2001.

Active within the Italian avant-garde since 1954, his first monochromes and Schermi date back to 1957. In the 1970s Mauri turned his attention to the ideological component of avant-garde language. These are the years of Ebrea (1971). He created his first major performance, Che cosa è il fascismo (What is Fascism) in Rome (1971), followed by Natura e Cultura, Oscuramento, and Muro d’Europa at De Appel in Amsterdam. In 1975 he presented the performance Intellettuale on the occasion of the inauguration of the new Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, with the participation of Pier Paolo Pasolini, Mauri’s close friend.

He was invited again to the Venice Biennale in 1974, returning in 1978 with the installation I numeri malefici, in 1993 with Muro Occidentale o del Pianto (Western Wall or Wailing Wall), and in 2013 with the performance Ideologia e Natura(1973). In 2015 he was once more at the Biennale, invited to represent Italy in the Central Pavilion.

In 1989 he staged the performance Che cosa è la filosofia. Heidegger e la questione tedesca. Concerto da tavolo at the Centro Multimediale Quarto di S. Giusta in L’Aquila. His first retrospective, Fabio Mauri. Opere e Azioni 1954–1994, was held in 1994 at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. In 1997 he presented Le Proiezioni at MOCA in Los Angeles, at the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio), at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome.

A second retrospective was shown in 1997 at the Kunsthalle in Klagenfurt. In 1999 he was included in Minimalia. Da Giacomo Balla a… at P.S.1 in New York. In 2000 he participated in Novecento. Arte e Storia in Italia at the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome.

His last retrospective was staged in 2003 at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains in Lille. With the large-scale installation Inverosimile in 2007, he took part in the major exhibition Not Afraid of the Dark | Emergenze in Milan. In 2009, his last work Fabio Mauri, etc. was presented at the Galleria Michela Rizzo in Venice. He died after a long illness in May 2009.

In 2012 his work was included in dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel and at the Palazzo Reale in Milan in the exhibition Fabio Mauri. THE END. In 2013, his installation Warum ein Gedanke einen Raum verpestet? / Why Does a Thought Poison a Room? (1972) was presented again at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Anni ‘70. Arte a Roma. In 2014, the CIMA Foundation in New York hosted L’Espressionista (1982), a performance derived from Gran Serata Futurista 1909–1930(1980), while Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires dedicated his first major solo exhibition in South America.

In 2015, Hauser & Wirth dedicated two major solo shows to him, first at its historic New York venue and later in London, reprising his work in New York again in 2018. In 2016, the Museo MADRE in Naples staged one of the largest retrospectives dedicated to the artist. In 2023, two important solo exhibitions were held: FABIO MAURI. Amore Mio at Hauser & Wirth (Zurich) and the ongoing Fabio Mauri. Esperimenti nella verifica del Male at the Castello di Rivoli (Turin).

His work has been shown in Canada, the USA, Austria, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, and England, with exhibitions in Vancouver, Toronto, London, Edinburgh, and at the Kulturhaus in Potsdam.

His activity continues through the Studio Fabio Mauri, Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo. Mauri published many essays in art journals and catalogues. His intense intellectual activity is gathered in his last book Io sono un ariano (I Am an Aryan), published by Volume! (Rome) and Lampi di Stampa (Milan).