Fabio Mauri

Fabio Mauri, born in Rome in 1926, was one of the leading figures of the Italian avant-garde in the post-war period. From a young age, he displayed a keen interest in art and culture, publishing his first drawings and articles at the age of sixteen in the magazine Il Setaccio, which he co-founded with Pier Paolo Pasolini in Bologna in 1942.

In the early stages of his career, Mauri distinguished himself with primarily pictorial works, characterized by a strong expressionist influence and informal abstraction. During this period, he explored themes related to inner life and collective memory. From the outset, his art sought to give form to a thought process that engaged with personal experience and historical dynamics.

One of the key concepts in his work is the screen, which gradually became the central element of his practice. Initially conceived as a monochrome surface, the screen for Mauri evolved into a metaphor for thought: a symbolic space on which to project reflections on the contemporary world. Over time, this neutral surface became populated with signs, fragments of history, and memory, transforming into a canvas on which the artist imprinted the impact of media and collective narrative on daily life.

Beginning in 1957-58, with the Schermi series, Mauri began to reflect on how cinema and television had influenced the perception of reality, altering memory and redefining the boundary between fiction and truth. This critical reflection anticipated many of the debates about the media age and the power of images in shaping contemporary reality.

Mauri's artistic practice, eclectic and experimental, developed through multiple expressive languages: from performance to installation, drawing to writing, painting to objects, films, and bodies. Through these works, Mauri sought to decipher and convey the complexity of the modern world, particularly investigating the theme of Evil, which contradicts the notion of an orderly and rational cosmos.

Reflecting on his own artistic journey, Mauri once stated: "I still don't know whether God is interested in art; I've never understood it, especially not mine, which highlights evil, something I have a certain eye for."