Chiaroscuro, 1998
GPE-0100
Die-cut lithograph and silkscreen
Gohrsmühle cotton paper
Two plates 50 x 40 cm each
Signed on the recto of each plate, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto of each plate, bottom left
60 in Arabic numerals from 1/60 to 60/60
10 in Roman numerals from I/X to X/X
15 artist’s proofs in Arabic numerals from A.P. 1/15 to A.P. 15/15
8 H.C. in Arabic numerals from H.C. 1/8 to H.C. 8/8
3 E.P. unnumbered
Edition Schellmann, Munich
Edition Domberger, Filderstadt (Stuttgart)
The work is part of the series of editions titled Sequences, made up of diptychs and triptychs, produced in 1998 by the German publisher of limited edition artworks Jörg Schellmann. The project includes twenty-nine works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Daniel Buren, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Hanne Darboven, Günther Förg, Dan Flavin, Sylvie Fleury, Nan Goldin, Peter Halley, Rebecca Horn, Ilya Kabakov, Per Kirkeby, Imi Knoebel, Jeff Koons, Joseph Kosuth, Jannis Kounellis, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Gerhard Merz, Matt Mullican, Nam June Paik, Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Thomas Ruff, Julian Schnabel, Elaine Sturtevant, Rosemarie Trockel, Richard Tuttle, and James Welling.
The arrangement of the two plates with a short interval between them – framed individually or in a single frame, with or without a passepartout – is binding: to the left the plate is against a white background, to the right it is against a black background.
The two die-cut plates used as passepartouts1 reproduce two complementary images: the first plate, a black ink stain spreading out against a white background; the second, an explosion of light against a black background. In the central cut-out, each plate offers the image of the other crumpled plate, thus suggesting a reciprocal integration, without generating a whole image, however.
In the artist's own words: “A black stain on a blank page (La Sainte Vierge by Francis Picabia, a variant that was not used on page 3 of issue no. XII of “391”, March 1920). A white stain against a black sky (from a photograph by Paolo Mussat Sartor reproducing an explosion of fireworks during the night). Two images: the first one frames the second one, and vice versa (that is: two different versions of the same image)".2
The same subject was developed in two large-scale works having the same name made during the same year (GPO-0784, GPO-0817).
1 Each plate is made up of a folding passepartout: the front side presents a full-bleed lithograph, the inner-right side features, applied to the centre (in the area corresponding to the cut-out of the front side), the reproduction of the crumpled image, printed in silkscreen.
2 G. Paolini, note to the work (1997), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 784, p. 800.
• Fireworks: photograph by Paolo Mussat Sartor.
• Francis Picabia, La Sainte Vierge II, 1920, Indian ink on paper, Bibliothèque Doucet, Paris.
| 1999 | London, Lisson Gallery, Giulio Paolini. Stanze, 16 April - 22 May. |
| 2001 | Milan, Association Jacqueline Vodoz et Bruno Danese, Impressions Graphiques. L’opera grafica di Giulio Paolini, 1967-2000, 17 May - 22 June, col. repr. p. 17 (erroneously dated “1997”). |
| 2018-19 | Bologna, Studio G7, Senza cornice. Opere scelte, 15 December 2018 - 26 January 2019. |
| • | G. Paolini, “The two prints...”, in Sequences. A collection of prints (Munich: Edition Schellmann [1998]), n. pag., in English and German; republished in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 784 p. 800, in Italian. |
| • | Sequences. A collection of prints (Munich: Edition Schellmann, [1998]), repr. n. pag., with text by the artist The two prints ... |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), col. repr. p. 331 (erroneously dated “1997”). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques, l’opera grafica (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 2005), update supplement 1996-2005 to the volume Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 100, col. repr. (erroneously dated “1997”). |
