Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione” (cerimoniale: l’artista è l’assente), 1986
GPE-0058
From the “Triumph of Representation” (Ceremonial: the Artist is Absent)
Lithograph, red pencil drawing and collage
Three plates 40 x 60 cm each
Signed on the verso of the third plate, centre: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the verso of the third plate, centre
90 in Arabic numerals from 1/90 to 90/90
15 in Roman numerals from I/XV to XV/XV
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, and Galleria Christian Stein, Milan
Marco Noire Editore, Turin
The portfolio was produced jointly by the Galleria Christian Stein, Milan, and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, with which Paolini collaborated from 1966 and from 1985, respectively. Marian Goodman, who was always interested in multiplied art, directed, from 1965 to 1992, Multiples Inc., New York, specialized in the production and promotion of multiples.
Double-sided grey cardboard folder, red cloth spine and red ribbon ties, blank, closed format 45 x 65 cm. Contains a title-page, three plates, a sheet with a text by the artist (on the recto) and the colophon (on the verso), in Italian and in English.
Includes information regarding date of printing (May 1986), printer, measurements of the plates, and edition size.
Text by the artist, Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione” (cerimoniale: l’artista è assente), referring to the subject of the portfolio.
The three plates, each framed individually with or without a passepartout, must be arranged at short intervals from each other and horizontally (overall dimensions without a passepartout around 41 x 190 cm, with a passepartout of 6-7 cm on each side around 56 x 232 cm). The order of the sequence is binding: the first plate includes two figures, the second three, and the last one four.
The three plates respectively feature the images of two, three, and four valets, contained inside the perspective determined by the drawing in red, which from one plate to the next retraces the squaring of the sheet beginning from the two diagonals.1 Each figure is holding a case that contains some paper elements, black or white, torn or crumpled up, that in the final plate become scattered sheets randomly dispersed. Moreover, at the centre of each plate is the photographic reproduction of a slide projector on a plinth, turned in the direction of the viewer.
The squaring refers to the artist's first painting, Disegno geometrico in 1960 (GPO-0001), a potential container for every image. The anonymous and detached valet, taken from French eighteenth-century theatre iconography, emphasizes the gesture of giving or offering. In this sense the figure represents a stand-in for the author, who abdicates the role of demiurgical creator in order to limit himself to offering up to the gaze clues that are preliminary to the eventual becoming of an image (the paper fragments from white to black underlie, in a broad sense, the largest possible range of hypotheses). The projector announces, through the beam of blinding light, the appearance of an image that is still unknown. Overall, the sequence of the three plates stages the device itself, which presides over the construction of an image: the space of the representation that is a prelude to a vision. The author, seated in the audience, takes on the role of the viewer, so that the representation itself will "triumph" on the scene, with all of its elements of unthinkable appearances, disappearances, illusions, and artifices.
The portfolio harkens back to the large-scale work made for the solo show at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York in the fall of 1985, where the images making up the three plates were projected, by slide projectors, on three walls of the exhibition space (GPO-0554).
1 The drawing of the diagonals in the first plate is followed by the drawing of four arches with the compass in the second plate, completed, lastly, with median orthogonal axes, drawn in pencil.
| 1987 | Rome, Galleria Pieroni, Giulio Paolini, from 7 February. |
| 1990 | London, Anna Bornholt Gallery, Chiasmus, 4 May - 14 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works n. pag., col. repr. n. pag. (first plate). |
| 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. 59). |
| 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. 59). |
| 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. 59). |
| 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. 59). |
| 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. 59). |
| 1999 | London, Lisson Gallery, Giulio Paolini. Stanze, 16 April - 22 May; edition XXVIII/XXX. |
| 2008 | Gifu, The Museum of Fine Arts, Taguchi Collection I: Contemporary Art, 11 March - 11 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 63, col. repr. p. 47 (third plate, erroneously dated “1983”). |
| 2008-09 | Siegen, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Blickmaschinen oder wie Bilder entstehen. Die zeitgenössische Kunst schaut auf die Sammlung Werner Nekes, 23 November 2008 - 10 May 2009, touring to: Budapest, Kunsthalle Budapest and C3 Center for Culture & Communication Foundation (Pillanatgépek), 20 June - 23 August 2009; Siviglia, Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (Máquinas de Mirar), 17 September - 22 November 2009, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 289, col. repr. p. 66; edition VII/XV. |
| 2012 | Aichi, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Art as Magic: Visionary Artists and Their Inner Supernatural World, 13 April - 24 June, col. repr. p. 15 (plates first and third, erroneously dated “1983”); edition The Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu. |
| 2017 | Boston, Krakow Witkin Gallery, Times / Changes, 28 January - 11 March; edition 30/90. |
| 2019 | Boston, Krakow Witkin Gallery, Giulio Paolini: 1983-2010, 21 September - 2 November; edition 30/90. |
| • | G. Paolini, Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione” (cerimoniale: l’artista è assente), note to the work included with the portfolio, in Italian and English; republication of the text previously published in Artforum (New York), December, 1983, p. 43, in English; Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi, 1984, n. pag.; Id., Giochi d’acqua. Disegni e note 1983-85 (Rome: Galleria Pieroni, 1985), n. pag.; Giulio Paolini. Tutto qui, exhibition catalogue, Ravenna, Pinacoteca Comunale, Loggetta Lombardesca (Ravenna: Agenzia Editoriale Essegi, 1985), n. pag.; successively published in G. Paolini, Ancora un libro (Rome: Editrice Inonia, 1987), p. 36; G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), p. 200; Impressions graphiques. L'opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 59. |
| • | A. Vettese, “Giulio Paolini”, in Flash Art 143 (Milan, Italian edition), March-April, 1988, col. repr. p. 60. |
| • | “Giulio Paolini. ’The Triumph of Representation’”, in The Print Collector's Newsletter 19, no. 1 (New York), March-April, 1988, pp. 19-20, repr. |
| • | Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 59, col. repr., with text by the artist È l’opera, adesso…. |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’œuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by Id. (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 94-95, repr. no. 19. |
| • | Carte Noire. Noire Editions 1980/2015 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), col. repr. n. pag. |
| • | Paolini. I Grandi illustrati del Corriere della Sera. Arte contemporanea – I protagonisti 8, edited by F. Gualdoni (Milan: RCS MediaGroup S.p.a., 2022), p. 64, col. repr. p. 65 (third plate). |
| • | 0424. I vent’anni della Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, edited by B. Della Casa (Turin: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, 2025), col. repr. p. 52 (edition VII/XV; installation at the Fondazione Paolini’s office). |
