Cahiers d’art, 1974
GPE-0014
Photo print, collage and pencil drawing
Three sheets each 30 x 40 cm mounted in three folding passepartouts each 35.6 x 50 cm
Signed, titled and dated on the verso of the third passepartout, centre: “Giulio Paolini / Cahiers d’art / 1974”
Autograph numbering on the verso of the third passepartout, centre
12 in Arabic numerals from 1/12 to 12/12
Slight differences in the pencil drawing are due to the manual execution of the drawing.
Self-produced by the artist
The three plates, each one inserted in a passepartout folder and individually framed, must be arranged at short intervals from each other and horizontally, from the first (with the photographic print visible) to the third (with the photograph completely covered by the white sheet with the drawing).
The three plates contain three different expressions of the same subject. In the first, the photograph of the double page of an open book, which reproduces a partial view of the wall of an exhibition space,1 is partially hidden by a rectangle of drawing paper. The trapezoidal format of the blank rectangle inscribes it in the perspectival view of the photograph, so as to evoke a painting, that escapes our view, however. In the second plate, the image of the book is almost entirely hidden by the blank sheet, which features the outline of a trapezoidal square, similar to the one applied to the centre of the first plate. In the third plate the sheet of drawing paper completely covers the image of the open book, and reproposes, in a drawn form, the image of the first plate.
If the elements in the image call and amplify each other from one plate to another, the initial subject gradually loses concreteness: from the photograph of the open book one arrives at its almost abstract representation. From the blank painting in the first plate to the drawing without a face in the last one, the path, albeit developed in a sequence, is circular: the arrival is still the beginning, the itinerary does not lead to any threshold; the viewer's attention is, rather, directed towards the very concept of the image and of representation. The open book becomes a drawing album, which calls into play, as the title suggests2, the very language of art.
The portfolio harkens back to a large-scale work with the same title made the previous year (GPO-0248).
1 The photograph reproduces the double page of the exhibition catalogue Teatro delle mostre, Rome, Galleria La Tartaruga (Rome: Lerici Editore, 1968), n. pag., reproducing a view of Paolini's work on display, Autoritratto, 1968 (GPO-0151) taken by Plinio De Martiis.
2 The French expression “cahiers d’art” literally means “art notebooks”; the term “cahier” designates various types of booklets, from the notebook to the diary, from the copybook to the album. “Cahiers d’art” also recalls the historical art and literature review founded in 1926 in Paris by Christian Zervos – indefatigable promoter of the avant-garde exponents of his day and age – as well as the publishing house and art gallery of the same name, also directed by Zervos.
| 1975 | Munich, Galerie Art in Progress, Giulio Paolini, 18 April - 21 May. |
| 1976 | Genoa, Samangallery, Giulio Paolini, 14 January - 7 February. |
| 1976 | Brescia, Banco (Galleria Massimo Minini), Giulio Paolini, 4-30 December. |
| 1977 | New York, Sperone-Westwater-Fischer, Giulio Paolini, 15 January - 15 February. |
| 1979 | Osaka, The National Museum of Art, Modern Italian Art and Japan: Intercourse of their artists, 6 October - 2 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 129, loose repr. |
| 1987 | Frankfurt, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Italienische Zeichnungen 1945-1987, 17 June - 19 July, touring to: Modena, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, 26 September - 20 December (Disegno italiano del dopoguerra), repr. p. 179. |
| 1989 | Turin, Salone del Libro, Impressions graphiques. Progetti e collaborazioni editoriali di Giulio Paolini, 12-18 May, cat. no. 2 (section “Edizioni a tiratura numerata”), not repr. |
| 1992 | Bonn, Bonner Kunstverein, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das graphische Werk 1967-1992, 24 February - 29 March (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 14). |
| 1993 | Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das druckgraphische Werk 1967-1992, 16 January - 7 March (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 14). |
| 1995 | Lisbon, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian / Centro de Arte Moderna José de Azeredo Perdigão, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Múltiplos e Obra Gráfica 1969-1995, 16 March - 28 May, not repr. in the exhibition brochure (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 14). |
| 1996 | Apolda, Kunsthaus Apolda Avantgarde, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques, 27 September - 27 October (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 14). |
| 1997 | Göppingen, Kunsthalle, Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques. Das graphische Druckwerk 1967-1995, 9 March - 13 April (catalogue Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini [Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992], cat. no. 14). |
| 2001 | Milan, Association Jacqueline Vodoz et Bruno Danese, Impressions Graphiques. L’opera grafica di Giulio Paolini, 1967-2000, 17 May - 22 June, not repr. |
| 2002 | Milan, Galleria Milano, Arte in Fotomedia. Una mostra storica, 15 October - 23 November, repr. n. pag. |
| 2003-04 | Gubbio, Palazzo Ducale, Grande segno cantato, 27 December 2003 - 28 March 2004, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 56, col. repr. p. 43. |
| 2022 | Paris, Librairie Marian Goodman, Giulio Paolini. Printed Editions and Multiples (1967-1977), 6 October - 26 November; edition 6/12. |
| • | G. Paolini, “Una sequenza...”, in Impressions graphiques. L'opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 14; republished in Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, exhibition catalogue, Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996), n. pag. |
| • | Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 14, repr., with text by the artist Una sequenza… |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, exhibition catalogue, Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996), repr. no. 5, with text by the artist Una sequenza… |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, voll. 1 and 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 248 p. 259, no. 742 p. 756, not repr. |
