Le chiavi del museo (Vues d’Optique), 2004
GPE-0109
The Keys of the Museum (Vues d’Optique)
Lithograph, silkscreen, die-cut card stock
Plates: Fedrigoni Tintoretto stucco 300 g
Model: Fabriano Artistico cardboard extrawhite 640 g
Ten plates 33 x 33 cm each, one plate 35 x 35 cm, four die-cut card stocks 17.5 x 35 cm each
Plates mounted on wall 105 x 105 cm, mounted model 17.5 x 35 x 35 cm, plinth 80 x 60 x 60 cm
Signed on the colophon of the portfolio: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the colophon of the portfolio
32 in Arabic numerals from 1/32 to 32/32
16 in Roman numerals from I/XVI to XVI/XVI
Danilo Montanari Editore, Ravenna
Grafiche Morandi, Fusignano (Ravenna)
The portfolio is part of the production of multiplied art by the publisher Danilo Montanari, Ravenna, from 1980 to 1993 director of the Agenzia Editoriale Essegi. His catalogue of publications includes books, multiples, and graphic editions by contemporary artists created in close collaboration with the authors.
Tri-fold white card stock folder, middle side with two flaps, closed format 35 x 35 cm; cover with titles in black (author, title, publisher). Contains eighteen elements: a silk-screen plate (on which, in the installed work, the model is placed), four die-cut elements (making up the model), a silk-screen plate with an axonometric projection of the model, multiplied towards the vanishing point, thus suggesting a potentially endless extension, nine lithographic plates, a plate with an installation plan, a sheet reproducing the nine plates and the English translation of the respective texts, and a sheet for the colophon.
Includes information regarding the edition size, printing technique, type of paper, measurements, printer, publisher, and date of printing (May 2004). Numbering bottom centre.
Text by the artist divided into nine parts, distributed in the same number of plates and titled individually, except for the fifth part (at the centre, in the wall installation), untitled. The titles are, from the first to the last plate: Nello spazio, Un quadro, Nella stanza, Sulla parete, Il punto di vista, L’orizzonte, L’oggetto invisibile, Le chiavi del museo.
To install the work the nine plates are arranged at short intervals from each other on the wall so that they create a square surface of 3 x 3 units (the plates can be framed individually, included in wooden frames or in plexiglas cases of the same size, or arranged on a panel at equidistant intervals of approximately 1 cm, which is in turn framed in a plexiglas case). The model must be assembled by interlocking the die cut shapes made of heavy paper; the structure thus obtained is then placed on the plate featuring the drawing made with dotted lines so that they correspond, after which it is placed on a plinth (80 x 60 x 60 cm), not directly on the support surface, but rather on a plexiglas sheet (60 x 60 cm). The plate with the drawing of the model and the accessory sheets in the folder are not included in the installation.
The multiple includes a cardboard model, to be assembled and placed on a plinth, and nine sheets of text, to be arranged on the wall, at short interludes, thus composing a square.
The model proposes an exhibition room with a square plane – featuring a square cut out at the centre of each side – that is potentially multipliable, as indicated in the extension of the sides of the room.1 The model is set down on a plate with a drawing made of dotted lines indicating the model's position and several squares in a staggered position and in random order, of the same dimensions as the die-cut squares in the walls of the room. The object of the nine sheets of text – each complete with a drawing based on a square module, except for the fifth plate – is the gaze turned towards a painting, hanging on the walls of a room, "a monologue of the gaze", the author writes.
While the model harkens back to the idea of an imaginary museum, "a place (or non-place) that can host the memory, past and future, of the artist",2 the plates hinge upon the concept of the painting. Both the museum and the painting are observed in perspective as the potential containers of every imaginable work. Hence, the subtitle (”Vues d’Optique”), recalling the printed views that were in style in the eighteenth century: when looked at through a special optical device, they created a perspectival illusion. In this sense, Paolini sees the museum and the painting as devices of the gaze that open up a gap towards an immeasurable spatiality, towards a dimension that is extraneous to ordinary spatiotemporal coordinates.
1 The multiplication of the room – a minimum unit of the imaginary museum – is also suggested by the plate (included in the portfolio, but excluded from the installation) which reproduces in the foreground an angular perspective of the model, multiplied towards the vanishing point, as if to suggest an unlimited extension.
2 G. Paolini in the text of the ninth plate, titled Le chiavi del museo.
| 2004 | Torre Pellice, Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Giulio Paolini. Qui e ora, 8 May - 26 September. |
| 2004-05 | Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, Giulio Paolini. Carte segrete, 5 November 2004 - 10 January 2005, cited in the checklist of exhibited works n. pag., col. repr. n. pag. (exhibition view). |
| 2005 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, XIV Quadriennale di Roma. Fuori tema / Italian Feeling, 9 March - 31 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 275, col. repr. p. 99. |
| 2006 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Libri Books Bücher, 29 April - 30 July, no catalogue. |
| 2011 | Bologna, Aula Magna della Biblioteca Universitaria, Libro / Opera. Viaggio nelle pagine d'artista. La collezione di Danilo Montanari, 16 September - 12 October, col. repr. p. 162. |
| 2011-12 | Vence, Château de Villeneuve, Fondation Émile Hugues, De Man Ray à Pistoletto, chronique d'une collection en mouvement, 3 December 2011 - 8 January 2012, no catalogue. |
| 2013 | Vence, Château de Villeneuve, Fondation Émile Hugues, La fabrique d'une collection, 2 March - 12 May, no catalogue. |
| 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. |
| 2014 | Vence, Château de Villeneuve, Fondation Émile Hugues, Intime conviction. Œuvres de la collection de Giuliana et Tommaso Setari, 14 June - 30 November, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 58, col. repr. p. 46 (exhibition view); edition V/XVI. |
| 2024 | Genoa, Palazzo Nicolosio Lomellino, Leggere il tempo. Libri nell’Arte. XXI secolo, 24 April - 30 June, no catalogue; edition 26/32. |
| • | 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. 110, col. repr. |
