Niente da aggiungere, 2026
GPE-0166
Nothing to Add
Digital print, engraving, and pencil inscription
Amatruda 300 g
Plate 25 x 24.5 cm folded, 25 x 49 cm open
Titled on the second panel, centre: “ “Niente da aggiungere”, signed on the third panel, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the second panel, bottom left
50 in Arabic numerals from 1/50 to 50/50
25 in Roman numerals from I/XXV to XXV/XXV
5 ad personam from AdP 1/5 to AdP 5/5
The slight differences in the way the title was written are due to the inscription by hand for each edition.
Colophonarte, Belluno
Roberto Giudici, Varese
This edition is part of the activities of the publishing house Colophonarte (Belluno), founded in 1985 by Egidio Fiorin. Originally, Edizioni d’Arte Colophon only produced graphic prints; since 1988, the catalogue has also included fine, handcrafted artist’s books that often combine a literary or philosophical text with a print commissioned from a contemporary artist.
Light-wood cover with a grey cloth spine and a grey elastic closure band; closed format 26 x 26.2 x 2 cm; the front board features an engraved title set at an angle. It contains the print in a pocket attached to the inside front board, and the texts laid out on twelve sheets joined and folded in accordion-style, with the final sheet attached to the inside back cover; arranged in sequence and interspersed with blank pages are the title page, a text by Paolini, a text by Massimo Cacciari, and the colophon.
Includes information regarding the texts, type of paper, autograph inscriptions, print run, printer, and date of printing (31 March 2026). Numbering bottom centre.
• Text by the artist, Silence, dated 2 January 2026, referring to the subject of the print.
• Text by Massimo Cacciari, I segni del silenzio, on the relationship between the word and the object it denotes, drawing inspiration from the subject of the print.
The photographic image, reproduced on the right side of the folded sheet, shows a stone featuring the French word “silence”. On the left side, an autograph inscription reveals the title of the print, Niente da aggiungere (Nothing to Add), echoing the subject of the image while at the same time serving as an aphoristic annotation.
As Paolini writes in the text accompanying the print, the stone, discovered by chance in a Parisian shop window and kept in his studio, caught his eye due to the felicitous correspondence between the word and the object. The noun expresses the silence of the stone, a mute, impenetrable object, capturing an essential aspect of it without, however, revealing anything of its innermost essence, thereby leaving the secrecy of its mineral nature intact.
The dilemma of language – the impossibility of expressing the ultimate essence of things – is the subject explored by the philosopher Massimo Cacciari in the text accompanying this print edition, but it is also a theme frequently revisited by Paolini, particularly in his writings. Indeed, his artistic philosophy rests on the conviction that art cannot and should not be explained or justified; rather, it should be made manifest through the impenetrable enigma of its language and the elusiveness of its dimension. To speak without revealing, to observe silence, and to listen rather than communicate are fundamental choices that Paolini constantly reinterprets in his works and statements. The call of silence resonates clearly in the image of the silent stone – which says it all without saying anything, inviting contemplation free from clamour or outside interference. “The language of art is silence”,1 the artist has stated; “nothing to add”, he states laconically in this instance.
1 G. Paolini, “Fine”, in Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria Christian Stein, 2017, p. 99.
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