Giulio Paolini ^©  

(1940)

Provenance:
Artist’s Collection;
Galleria Massimo Minini, Brescia;
Private collection, Naples

Exhibitions:
Giulio Paolini, Galleria Locus Solus, Genoa, from October 22nd 1993 to June 30st 1994, published in the exhibition catalogue on p. 73, n. E2, illustrated on p.37;
Preferirei di no. Cinque stanze tra arte e depressione, Museo Correr, Venice, from April 30th to July 3rd 1994, published in the catalogue of the exhibition curated by Achille Bonito Oliva on p. 149, illustrated on p. 48

Literature:
Giulio Paolini, la métaphore du damier, A. Querci, in "el guìa. Art de l'arc méditerranéen", year VII, Barcelona 1994, p. 61, (ill. color);
Maddalena Disch, Giulio Paolini. Hors d'oeuvre, in Giulio Paolini, la voce del pittore. Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, ADV Publishing House Company, Lugano 1995, pp. 123-124, ill. n.36;
Maddalena Disch, Giulio Paolini Catalogo ragionato, 1960-1999, Milano 2008, p. 739, ill. n.724

Photograph of the artwork authenticated by the artist

Artwork registered at Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, with N. GPO-0724

Blindarte kindly thanks to Maddalena Disch, of the Giulio and Anna Paolini Foundation, Turin, for the help in compiling this sheet

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''On an easel placed in the middle of two sheets of plexiglas, superimposed in a staggered manner and engraved along the diagonals, is placed a third plate of the same size, also squared in the diagonals, which bears the profile of an angry swan in black ink. At the swan’s eye, which coincides with the meeting point of the engraved diagonals, a black pencil holds back some indecipherable photographic negatives." (Maddalena Disch, Giulio Paolini, Catalogo Ragionato Tomo secondo 1983-1999, sheet 724).

Born in Genoa in 1940, Giulio Paolini is one of the most well-known and internationally established Italian artists. His research, ascribable to Conceptual art, is characterized since the debut works for reflection on the complex relationships between the work of art and the viewer, and between the artist and the artwork itself.

The recurring theme in Paolini’s works is the attention paid to the tools used to create the artworks and especially to the context around them. His artistic production is in fact a reflection on the entire process of creation: Paolini invites the viewer to look creatively at the work, stimulating research and reflection on the design, involving him directly in the space and freeing him from the role of passive user. The work presented here, realized in 1993-4, is the symbol of Paolini’s poetic work imbued with theatricality, with a structural component that could be defined as almost architectural, so the scenography becomes an essential part of it.

"The negatives and the black pencil allude to the impossibility of the synthesis between the already seen (the negatives) and the transparency (the plates still on the ground): between the before and after of that intraducible and elusive statement that is a work of art". (Giulio Paolini in conversation with Maddalena Disch, December 2005).