Exhibition curated by Ilaria Bernardi
Triennale Milano
December 3, 2025 – February 15, 2026
Exhibition produced by Associazione Genesi
in collaboration with
Triennale Milano and Studio Fabio Mauri – Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo
on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the artist’s birth
Associazione Genesi dedicates an exhibition to the theme of oppression in the work of Fabio Mauri (Rome, 1926 – 2009), a leading figure in the post-Second World War Italian avant-garde. This will mark the beginning of the celebrations for the centennial of the artist’s birth, which will begin in 2026 and include several events, among which major travelling retrospective exhibitions, as well as the publication of a general catalogue of works. The exhibition will be held in Milan, where the artist lived for a very long time, and a city he was very fond of.
Mauri was an artist who was capable of questioning like few others the “short century” in its contradictions, between memory, ideology, and the power of images. His work, which ranged from painting to drawing, from sculpture to performance, from the installation to writing, is marked by a constant tension between the individual and collective dimensions, between symbol and document, between ethics and historical determinism. As early as the 1950s, Mauri perceived the power and ambiguity of the screen, conceiving it to be a threshold and a filter, a neutral surface and at the same time a device of protection and manipulation, the emblem of a society that was gradually being defined a “society of the spectacle” and that today, thanks to computers and social media, has become truly a “society of the screen.” From the late 1960s Mauri also foreshadowed the theme, one that is relevant to the current times, of the body as a place of memory and critical reflection on oppression, on ideologies, and the possibility of transmitting collective traumatic experiences. Mauri had numerous solo shows in major exhibition venues both in Italy and abroad, as well as participating in some of the most important international events, from the Venice Biennale (1974, 1978, 1993, 2003, 2013, 2015) to dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012).
The mission of Associazione Genesi, founded in 2020 by its President Letizia Moratti, is to educate people about human rights through contemporary art. After showing, from 2021 to 2024, the works in its own collection (Collezione Genesi) that are linked to relevant and current social and environmental issues, in 2025 it expanded its offer, making way for a series of events dedicated to major artists who have by now become historicized, whose works are not as yet present in its Collection; artists whose life and/or work can be interpreted ex-post as anticipating social themes that have become critical today. The first event in this project was the monographic show of the works of Louise Nevelson (Kiev, 1899 – New York, 1988) held at Palazzo Fava in Bologna in the summer of 2025; the second one was the exhibition of Mauri’s work in Milan, at the Triennale, curated by Ilaria Bernardi, and realized in collaboration with the Studio Fabio Mauri – Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo.
Mauri deserves credit for having foreshadowed, from the late 1960s, the dramatic theme of oppression in its potential typological, chronological, and geographical expressions. This is the reason why the exhibition at the Triennale Milano will focus on a group of iconic works that the artist made between the late 1960s and the 2000s. These works are capable of casting light on the extreme relevance of the artist’s output via the central role of the theme of oppression, especially in its expressions linked to culture, identity, and ideology, exploring how in history and in various geographical contexts these three concepts have become reasons for oppression.
The historic works on display will include the installation Amore mio (1970) on the theme of death, never again exhibited in Italy after its presentation at the eponymous exhibition held in Montepulciano the same year it was made, Manipolazione di Cultura (1974) and Europa bombardata (1978), which, from their respective titles, already reveal the type of underlying oppression; I numeri malefici (1978) presented at the Venice Biennale in 1978 and now in the permanent collection of the Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, in which the artist shows how an error in calculation and judgment can serve as material for the interpretation of humans and history.
The works made by the artist in the following decades and that are also on display include Ricostruzione della memoria a percezione spenta (1988), Cina ASIA Nuova (1996), and Rebibbia (2007) exemplifying the artist’s sensibility in perceiving and interpreting every type of abuse, even of the most individual and personal kind, as a part of history.
The exhibition will also feature guided tours, workshops, and educational encounters co-organized by Genesi together with its own patrons, including Università Cattolica, FAI Ponte tra culture with Associazione Amici del FAI, Gariwo – the Gardens of the Righteous, and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation Italia. These activities, conceived for a public of all ages, offer tools that can be used to read not only Mauri’s poetics, but the universal themes dealt with as well, confirming the association’s goal to combine art, critical reflection, and collective participation.
The first appointment of the public program will be held on Wednesday, December 10, at 6 pm, with keynote speaker Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, President of the Advisory Committee of the Studio Fabio Mauri and curator of the general catalogue, published by Allemandi and Hatje Cantz. The catalogue will be presented for the first time on this occasion.
The hard-copy publishing project is promoted by MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna of the Settore Musei Civici del Comune di Bologna along with the Studio Fabio Mauri – Associazione per l’Arte L’Esperimento del Mondo, and realized thanks to the support of the Direzione Generale Creatività Contemporanea del Ministero della Cultura as part of theItalian Council program (14th edition, 2025), addressed to the promotion of contemporary Italian art in the world.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue published by Silvana Editoriale, with an introductory essay by the curator, a chronology of the artist’s life and works, descriptive entries of the works on display, and images and historical photographs from the artist’s archive.
The main sponsors of the event are Fondazione Cariplo, Eni and Intesa Sanpaolo.
The technical sponsors are Open Care – Servizi per l’Arte, Hidonix and Start.
The exhibition organized by Associazione Genesi marks the start of the activities of the centennial celebration that will continue with other events, including a major retrospective at MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, travelling to Mudam in Luxembourg.