Giro di boa, 1998
GPE-0102
Turning point
Lithograph
Plate 22 x 33.9 cm folded, 43.8 x 67.8 cm open
Signed on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
100 in Arabic numerals from 1/100 to 100/100
Exit Edizioni, Lugo (Ravenna)
Grafiche Morandi, Fusignano (Ravenna)
The print was produced for the book by Paolini titled Giro di boa, published by Exit Edizioni, a publishing house founded in 1976 in Lugo (Ravenna) by Alvaro Becattini. The volume is the last in the trilogy curated by the artist in close collaboration with Becattini between 1995 and 1998 (cf. Lezione di pittura, 1995, GPE-0095, and Black out, 1996, GPE-0097).
Giulio Paolini, Giro di boa (Lugo: Exit Edizioni, 1998). 34 x 22.5 cm, 32 pages, paper binding, die-cut dust jacket by the author. Writings by the author, out-of-text folded plate enclosed. Limited edition of 800 copies, of which 100 with numbered and signed plate.
The colophon of the book includes information regarding the publisher, date of printing (October 1998), edition size, plate, printer, and distribution.
Printed on the verso of the edition is the text Giro di boa, with post scriptum referring to the subject of the print. The writings collected in the book (1997-98) are titled Buongiorno, Ultime notizie, Vacanza, Si o no?, Istituto di bellezza, Se e sé, Chi si esprime è perduto, Contrattempo, Disjecti membra poetae, Effetto eco, Il momento della verità, Lapsus, Ingresso libero, Il Disegno in persona, Peccato originale, Buio in sala, Giudizio universale, Rideau.
The print conceived for the volume of writings by the artist titled Giro di boa portrays, in the lower half with a blue background, a male figure holding his head in his hands, seated on a raft, outlined in the midst of a sea of torn fragments of autograph notes, in a blue tone, simulating the ripples of the waves. At the centre of the raft, in the area corresponding to the central fold in the plate, is a pole with a flag representing a portion of the sky1 that stands out against the white background of the upper half of the print.
The scene inhabited by the thoughtful protagonist proposes an allegorical portrait of the author and his fate, suspended between the yearning towards the Absolute (symbolically represented by the flag with the image of the sky) and the drifting towards the shipwreck. As he dreams about touching infinity, the author remains prey to a never-ending wait, consumed in the attempt that is constantly being renewed to describe that ineffable dimension, as suggested by the notes and the deletions in the torn manuscripts.
Just as the book Giro di boa completes the trilogy of writings by the artist that began with Lezione di pittura (1995) and continued with Black out (1996), so the plate particularly refers to Lezione di pittura, via the motifs of the figure absorbed in thought and of the floor-pavement marked by a perspectival grid (here in the role of a raft). And like the previous books, Giro di boa as well presents, on the internal side of the jacket, the drawing of a setting seen in perspective, in this case impressed in white on dark blue and without any accessory elements.
1 The flag reproduced a work by Paolini – an actual flag – titled Senza titolo (senza figura), 1986-87 (GPO-0600).
Figure: Lionello Balestrieri, Beethoven, 1900, oil on canvas, 202 x 420 cm, Museo Revoltella, Trieste.
| 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. 21, text by the artist La superficie che appare... p. 20. |
| 2002 | Paris, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Impressions graphiques. L’œuvre graphique de Giulio Paolini 1967-2000, 23 April - 21 May, no catalogue. |
| 2002 | Modena, Biblioteca civica d’arte Luigi Poletti, Giulio Paolini. Pagine, 20 September - 23 November, col. repr. pp. 46-47 (caption p. 92), referred to in the text by M. Bertoni p. 13. |
| 2004 | Bologna, Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Ritratto dell’editore come artista. I libri e la grafica di Alvaro Beccatini, 18 September - 17 October, no catalogue. |
| 2005 | Lugo (Ravenna), Pescherie della Rocca, Exit. Alvaro Becattini, 30 April - 15 May, not repr. (on p. 27 reproduction of the cover of the book). |
| 2013 | Ravenna, Aula Magna della Biblioteca Classense, Una biblioteca d'artista. La collezione e le edizioni di libri d'artista di Danilo Montanari, 4 May - 1 June, not repr. |
| • | G. Paolini, La superficie che appare..., note to the work published on the verso of the print, as postscript to the text Giro di boa; republished in Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), p. 72; Impressions Graphiques. L’opera grafica di Giulio Paolini, 1967-2000, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Association Jacqueline Vodoz et Bruno Danese, 2001, p. 20. |
| • | L. Dematteis, G. Maffei, Libri d’artista in Italia 1960-1998 (Turin: Regione Piemonte, 1998), cat. no. 2103 p. 179, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), p. 72 (text by the artist La superficie che appare…), col. repr. p. 73. |
| • | C. Bonvicini, “Intervista a Giulio Paolini”, in Charta 12, no. 12 (Verona), January-February, 2003, p. 49, col. repr. p. 48. |
| • | C. Bonvicini, “Il caos perfetto”, in Giulio Paolini. Carte segrete, exhibition catalogue made up of loose sheets included in a folder, Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, 2004-05, n. pag., not repr. |
| • | 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. 102, col. repr. |
| • | R. Ferrario, Giulio Paolini. Un viaggio a distanza (Busto Arsizio: Nomos Edizioni, 2009), repr. p. 119. |
| • | D. Montanari, Poco mossi gli altri mari (Ravenna: Fernandel Editore, 2025), col. repr. on cover. |
