Manipulation der Kultur

Fabio Mauri
Manipulation der Kultur

Photographs: Fabio Mauri

Publisher: La Nuova Foglio Editrice

Pictures: 42

Year: 1976

Comments: Hardcover. 385 x 250 mm. First edition, 1976. 42 black & white photographs, captions in italian & german. Limited edition of 1000 copies. Included in Liliana Dematteis and Giorgio Maffei, Libri d’artista in Italia: 1960-1998. Very scarce and collectible copy in excellent condition with beautiful reproductions.

Manipulation der Kultur/Manipolazione di Cultura is one of Fabio Mauri’s most significant works on the theme of the ideological instrumentalization of language. In this artists’ book he appropriates photographs taken from German and Italian fascist sources. These are reproduced with part of the lower half having been over-printed with a black band of varying width, seemingly representing the rising tide of fascism. Each image has a brief descriptive caption which undermines the ideological content: ‘they film everything’, ‘they burn books’, ‘they hide their traces’, ‘they all have the same idea’.