Santa Croce 2073, 2010
GPE-0124
Lithograph
35 x 50 cm
Signed on the recto, bottom centre, on the reversed canvas: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom centre, on the reversed canvas
100 in Arabic numerals from 1/100 to 100/100
30 in Roman numerals from I/XXX to XXX/XXX
Centro Internazionale della Grafica, Venice
Marco Noire Editore, Turin
The print was commissioned from the artist by the Centro Internazionale della Grafica, Venice, on the occasion of the awarding of the 25th Premio Do Forni to Paolini on 2 December 2010. Organized each year starting in 1986 by the Ristorante Do Forni in collaboration with the Fondazione Musei Civici of Venice, the Premio Do Forni is headed by an awards committee coordinated by art critic Enzo di Martino.
Double-sided white card stock folder with a flap, closed format 50.2 x 36 cm; cover with titles in black (logos of the Regione Veneto and the Comune di Venezia, title of the Premio Do Forni 2010, author, publisher). Contains the plate inserted in a bi-folio featuring a text by Enzo Di Martino (second side), and the colophon (third side).
Includes information regarding the context of production, edition size, printer. Numbering at the centre.
Text by Enzo di Martino, Giulio Paolini: il rigore e l'illusione, referring to the artist's poetics, followed by a biographical note.
The male figure viewed from behind in the foreground, holding a canvas in his left hand and a pencil in his right, observes a composite ensemble of rectangular frames and circular shapes, which, as they gradually become smaller, suggest a telescopic perspective.1 The multiple round shapes reproduce details of the night-time and daytime sky, details of Venetian buildings, planets, fireworks, the face of a clock, a reflecting sphere (the single elements repeat themselves, rotated 180 degrees), as well as some circles outlined in coloured pencils. At the top centre two details stand out – the arch of a window and a gilt frame – which, together with the detail located in the vanishing point of the perspective, underscore the frame motif.
The protagonist intent on observing the movement of the round shapes is a stand-in for the author,2 captured here at the moment that precedes the definition of an image, that is, while waiting for the multitude of scattered elements to come together as a finished painting in its own right.
The title Santa Croce 2073 refers to an address in Venice which implicitly pays tribute to the collector Attilio Codognato, who admired and supported the artist from when he was young.
1 The alternating sequence of frames is generated by the triple repetition of a black frame and of the drawing against a white background of an architectural detail in the facade of a Venetian palazzo. The perspective lines coincide with the diagonals of a central square, hinted at via an incomplete line extending from the centre to the white frames.
2 The portrait of the artist viewed from behind – taken while he was installing one of his works in Prato in 1993 – appears for the first time towards the end of 2010 in this print and in several works on paper from the same period (GPC-1181, GPC-1667, GPC-2086); it would later become a recurring and characteristic motif. As concerns the print editions see in particular L’arte “a consulto”, 2017 (GPE-0139), which further develops the theme of this print.
• Figure viewed from behind: portrait of Giullio Paolini taken by Salvatore Mazza, 1993.
• Image of the timepiece from Samuel Abraham Goudsmit, Robert Clairborne, Quarta dimensione: tempo (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1967), p. 8 (”L’ora ufficiale americana”).
• View of the Rialto Bridge, Venice.
| 2019 | Turin, Noire Gallery, Giulio Paolini. Promemoria, 12 April - 10 June; artist’s proof. |
| 2019 | Boston, Krakow Witkin Gallery, Giulio Paolini: 1983-2010, 21 September - 2 November; artist’s proof. |
| • | Carte Noire. Noire Editions 1980/2015 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), col. repr. n. pag. (artist’s proof). |
| • | G. Paolini, Eccomi. Qui dove sono (Turin: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, 2025), col. repr. p. 67 (artist’s proof). |
