L’offerta musicale, 2008

In the foreground a drawing in perspective features two volumes one on top of the other: the lower one, which is larger, encloses the photographic image of a reflecting sphere, applied by collage, while the upper one, which is smaller, is distinguished by the bottom of the volume which is articulated by a grid.1 Standing along the vanishing lines of the drawing are four valets wearing eighteenth-century costumes, each of whom is holding a case with a torn fragment of music paper inside; overall, the cases form a horizontal sequence of squares. Situated in the vanishing point of the perspective is a projector, turned towards the foreground, as if to capture the sphere in its own light beam; at the same time, the projector coincides with the point where the diagonals outlined in red intersect, thus amplifying the visual angle.
The image in the background offers another perspectival drawing, borrowed from a seventeenth-century handbook, it too with a horizontal plane marked by a grid-like pattern. The linear construction is superimposed on the image of a scene still from Richard Wagner's Parsifal, with a sequence of seven columns suspended above an equal number of pedestals.2 Seated to the right in the image is a male figure lost in thought, his face in his hands.3
From an iconographic point of view, the valets and their gesture of offering literally refer to the title (“L’offerta musicale”, meaning The Musical Offer), and in a broader sense to the patron; along with the columns they also recall the context in which the print was made.4 As concerns the contents, the stand-ins for the author and the projector reformulate the typically Paolinian themes of the wait for a vision and the image that is becoming, while the sphere, symbolizing fulfillment alludes to the attempt to put into focus an ungraspable dimension (emphasized via the variable position of the sphere from one copy to another of the print run).
The same theme was subsequently developed in several variants on paper, made between 2009 and 2012 (GPC-1142, GPC-1143, GPC-1362).

1 The two overlapping volumes and the sphere recall the large-scale work titled Immacolata Concezione. Senza titolo / Senza autore, 2007-08 (GPO-0961). Cf. the studies reproduced in the exhibition catalogue Risonanze #2. Giulio Paolini & Fabio Vacchi, Rome, Spazio Risonanze, Auditorium Parco della Musica (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2008), pp. 83-113. The same drawing can be found in another print from 2008, GPE-0119.
2 Richard Wagner, Parsifal, directed by Federico Tiezzi, set designs by Giulio Paolini, produced by Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, first performance December 2007.
3 The figure borrowed from the painting Beethoven (1900) by Lionello Balestrieri appeared for the first time in 1994-95 (cf. Lezione di pittura, 1995, GPE-0095).
4 The valets and the columns are among the main components of the installation titled L’offerta musicale proposed by Paolini for the exhibition Risonanze #2. Giulio Paolini & Fabio Vacchi, Spazio Risonanze, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome, 9 May - 15 June 2008, on the occasion of which the print was produced. Cf. to this regard the Studio per “L’offerta musicale”, 2008, GPC-1132. As concerns the valet motif see in particular the prints Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione”, 1986 (GPE-0058) and Phoenix, 1992 (GPE-0084).