Promenade, 2010

The first of ten plates, against a grey background, serves as a "frontispiece", in synthesis announcing the theme of the portfolio. The drawing in perspective reproduces a dizzying series of nine pedestals (the last ones, for as far as the eye can see, are just hinted at by a short vertical sign), each of which bears the inscription, in a different colour, of a letter in the alphabet, so that the reading from the vanishing point to the first level spells out the French word “Promenade”.
The following nine plates develop the same theme through an equal number of episodes, set against the background of a sky whose colours change from dawn to dusk. The landscape component is thus joined at times with the image of an ancient sculpture, of an interior, or of other typical motifs in the artist's iconographic repertoire. From the second to the seventh plate the number of plinths gradually grows, while the last two respectively present a close-up view of only two pedestals and, lastly, the image of a basement that has exploded in a multitude of pieces. Inscribed in each plate is a letter in the alphabet, so that in the succession of plates the word “Promenade”, referred to in the title, can be read.
The iconographic theme dates to the project Promenade commissioned from the artist in 2008 for the park of the Reggia di Venaria Reale and was resumed, in view of its imminent creation, during the period when the portfolio was being conceived. The work consisted of twenty-four pedestals arranged at regular intervals along the two sides that surround the body of water in the park opposite the Reggia; each of them accompanied by a drawing, overall they represent the twenty-four hours in the day. In the artist's own words: “[....| Twenty-four pedestals make up a theatre of would-be monuments, without figures and without voices, brought to life by incorporeal signals, figures without a name. [...] Signals, ‘pivots’, motionless witnesses to the passing of Time".1
The title Promenade was used for another print as well, made in 1992 (GPE-0088).

1 G. Paolini, note concerning the first project, 2008, held in the artist's archive. The project was reformulated a third time in 2012, and later abandoned (cf. GPO-1018). In 2012, the re-elaboration of the initial project led to the creation of another work, also titled Promenade (GPO-1024), which reproduces the layout and iconography of the portfolio, however extended to twelve elements. In the Paolinian universe the numbers 12 to 24 indicate a maximum temporal extension, an absolute duration (the 12 months of the year, the 24 hours of the day), which is also expressed in the arc of time that stretches from dawn to dusk.