Studio per opere esposte, 2014
GPE-0132
Study of Exhibited Works
Aquatint
Hahnemühle 350 g
Plate 34.7 x 24 cm folded, 34.7 x 48 cm open
Signed on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Numbering on the recto, bottom left
30 in Arabic numerals from 1/30 to 30/30
10 in Roman numerals from I/X to X/X
Accademia di Brera, Milan
Paola Parisi, Milan
The print is part of the not-for-sale portfolio produced by the Accademia di Brera, Milan, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Academic Year 2014-2015, and the awarding of the title of Honourary Member to Jannis Kounellis and Giulio Paolini, on 14 January 2015. The portfolio includes three etchings by Alberto Garutti, Jannis Kounellis, and Giulio Paolini.
Double-sided grey cardboard folder, with cloth spine and corners and grey ribbon ties, closed format 35 x 26 cm; on the front board white label with titles in black and red (logo of the Accademia di Brera, academic year). Contains the colophon, the plate, and thirteen sheets regarding the new honorary members of Brera elected on the occasion of the inauguration of the Anno Accademico 2014-15 (title-page, programme for the inauguration ceremony of the Anno Accademico, table of contents, texts by various authors).
Includes information regarding the context of production, date of printing (January 2015), type of paper, printer, individual works (captions with technique, date, edition size), and publisher.
• Introductory text by Marco Galateri di Genola (President of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera), Un nuovo anno accademico, on the subject of the upcoming Academic Year 2014-15.
• Introductory text by Franco Marocco (Director of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera), Brera oggi, on the subject of the tasks and intentions of the Accademia di Brera at the current time.
• Text by Bruno Racine (President of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, newly elected honorary member of Brera), L’artiste et la bibliothèque, on the subject of the relationship between the artist, the book, and the library, with four examples of artists invited to show their work at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Sophie Calle, Matthew Barney, Richard Prince, Joseph Kosuth).
• Text by Sandrina Bandera (Superintendent and Director of the Pinacoteca di Brera pro tempore), Processo per il Museo. Artisti contemporanei a Brera – 2015, on the subject of the opening up to contemporary art by the Accademia and the Pinacoteca di Brera, starting from the initiative by Franco Russoli developed since 1974; in the mention of the group exhibition Brera e gli artisti contemporanei, presented by Russoli in 1976, reference is made to the work on display by Paolini (Ateneo, 1971-73).
• Unpublished text by Jannis Kounellis, untitled, about his concept of art.
• Text by Giulio Paolini, Quadri, about the concepts of the painting and the artwork (from his book Dall’Atlante al Vuoto in ordine alfabetico [Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2010], p. 109; from the second paragraph to the end the text reproduces a passage from the text published in the plates of the edition titled Le chiavi del museo (Vues d’Optique), 2004, cf. GPE-0109).
• Text by Francesca Valli, Il laboratorio di un pittore di storia. Il fondo Hayez all’Accademia di Brera, on the subject of the artist Francesco Hayez's fund.
The red lines recall the spatial scheme of a room viewed in perspective, which hosts an orderly "painting gallery", observed by several viewers in the foreground. At the same time the red diagonals and the hint at the median axes square the surface of the sheet.
The squaring recalls the artist's first work, Disegno geometrico, 1960 (GPO-0001), that is, in a symbolic key, the painting that stands for every painting possible, the painting that potentially includes every painting imaginable. The viewers are the stand-ins for both the author and the public, which for Paolini are equivalent roles: the one and the other stand before the work and listen, liaising with it through their gaze. A gaze that is expectation, a question without an answer of the enigma that makes up a painting.
The print is part of the studies for the large-scale work (Non)senso della visita (GPO-1044), conceived in 2015 for a group show at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, which commissioned the print (for the studies on paper cf. GPC-0901, GPC-1487, GPC-1488). The subsequent developments of this theme led to several variations, whose common denominator is one or more viewers, viewed from behind, turned towards a painting or a series of framings (among the prints cf. the portfolio Misura per misura, 2017, GPE-0137).
