Giochi d’acqua, 1984
GPE-0048
Water Games
Silkscreen
Plate 48.5 x 34 cm folded, 97 x 68 cm open
Signed and dated on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini 1984”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
200 in Arabic numerals from 1/200 to 200/200
CGSS/K&E, Turin
The print commissioned from the artist by the Turin advertising agency CGSS – founded in 1968 by Giorgio Caponetti, Pietro Gagliardi, Silvio Saffirio, and Marco Silombrini, associated with the American group Kenyon & Eckhardt in 1984 – is included in the collection of editions and multiples produced in 1968 as a Christmas gift for the clients and the friends of the agency. Paolini's edition is the seventeenth in the CGSS/K&E collection, preceded by the works of Ugo Nespolo (1968, 1976), Enrico Baj (1969), Emilio Scanavino (1970), Aldo Mondino (1971), Renato Volpini (1972), Concetto Pozzati (1973), Piero Gilardi (1974), Gino Marotta (1975), Alik Cavaliere (1977), Emilio Tadini (1978), Gianfranco Pardi (1979), Lucio Del Pezzo (1980), Beppe De Valle (1981), Art Kane (1982), and Fulvio Roiter (1983).
Glossy green cardboard box, 50 x 35 x 2 cm, on the front board blue label with titles in white (date, author, publisher). Contains a sheet that serves as a title-page and the folded plate.
The background view – which is in four parts like the sheet folded in four – consists of the quadruple mirror-like repetition of the same motif, thus generating overall the image of a body of water viewed from above, and vibrating with reflections. At the centre is the disassembled figure of the Resting Satyr, his legs upside down suggesting that he has fallen from above. The impact of the fall is amplified by the scattering all around of torn fragments, borrowed from the same reproduction of the ancient sculpture.
The title alludes to the trompe l’œil effect of the body of water, attested to by the concentric circles around the Satyr. The motif of the ruinous fall of a mythical or mythological figure – as a stand-in for the author – is a recurring one in Paolini's output in 1982-84, recalling the fatal destiny of he who fools himself into thinking that he can touch the absolute dimension of the image (cf. La caduta di Icaro, 1982, GPO-0464; Aria, 1982-83, GPO-0502; L’idolo, 1983-84, GPO-0515).
The same theme was developed in a variant on paper, which was made soon afterwards (GPC-0668).
The original collage on which the print is based is documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-0655.
• Figure: Resting Satyr, Roman copy from of the 4th century BC original by Praxiteles, marble, h 170 cm, Musei Capitolini, Rome; reproduction from Francis Haskell, Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 209, fig. 108 (“Marble Faun”).
• Background image: Cleopatra Pool, Hierapolis-Pamukkale; reproduction from Roloff Beny Interprets in Photographs Pleasure of Ruins by Rose Macaulay (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977), p. 9, “Columns under water at Hierapolis, Turkey”.
| 1988 | Milan, Studio Marconi, CGSS 1968-1987. L’arte della Pubblicità, April, col. repr. n. pag. |
| 1992 | Bonn, Bonner Kunstverein, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das graphische Werk 1967-1992, 24 February - 29 March (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 49). |
| 1993 | Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das druckgraphische Werk 1967-1992, 16 January - 7 March (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 49). |
| 1995 | Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian / Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Múltiplos e Obra Gráfica 1969-1995, 16 March - 28 May, not repr. in the exhibition brochure (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 49). |
| 1995 | Limoges, Saint-Yrieix-la-Perche, Théâtre du Centre Jean-Pierre Fabrègue, Bookmakers. Une exposition des livres d’artistes de Zona Archives, 2 June - 15 August, cited in the checklist of exhibited works n. pag., not repr. |
| 1996 | Apolda, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques, 27 September - 27 October (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 49). |
| 1997 | Göppingen, Kunsthalle, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das graphische Druckwerk 1967-1995, 9 March - 13 April (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 49). |
| 2006 | Turin, Galleria “èArte”, Paolini, Penone, Pistoletto, 7 February - 18 March. |
| • | Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 49, col. repr. (artist’s proof). |
