L’Aleph, 1979
GPE-0035
The Aleph
Lithograph
68 x 49 cm
Titled and signed on the recto: “L’Aleph” (bottom centre), “Giulio Paolini”(bottom right)
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
60 in Arabic numerals from 1/60 to 60/60
Franco Debenedetti, Turin
The print was commissioned from the artist by Franco Debenedetti – CEO of Olivetti at the time – as a personal Christmas gift.
The eighteenth-century drawing of a hand holding a pen, accompanied by the numbers 1 to 9 in the areas corresponding to the various parts of the hand, comes from the Encyclopédie by Diderot and D’Alembert, where in didactic fashion it illustrates the "proper way to hold a pen" when writing. To the left of number 9, in his own handwriting Paolini adds the numbers ‘197’ in gold, thus composing the year the print was made as if it had been written by the hand itself. The artist juxtaposes on the drawing the letter “A”, also in gold, suggested by the compositional structure of the image itself.
“A” being the first letter in the Latin alphabet, it symbolically “describes” the image of a hand that prepares to write or draw, that is, it announces the potential becoming of an image. As the title indicates, the letter A also refers to the aleph, seen as the primordial unit that contains everything. The capital letter in the title also refers to the short story with the same title written by Jorge Luis Borges, in which the narrator sees the Aleph: “the unconceivable universe”,1 enclosed in a tiny sphere, that is, the reduction of the multiple to One.
The same theme was formulated in an original variant on paper, made that same year (GPC-0487).
1 J.L. Borges, “L’Aleph” (1945), in Id., Collected Fictions (London: Penguin Books, 1998), p. 283.
Image of the hand from Denis Diderot, Jean Baptiste Le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Recueil de planches sur les sciences, les arts libéraux et les arts méchaniques, avec leur explication. Seconde livraison, en deux parties. Première partie (Paris: 1763), p. 126, plate III (“L’Art d’écrire”).
| 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. 34). |
| 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. 34). |
| 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. 34). |
| 1996 | Nice, Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Arte Povera. Les multiples, 23 March - 16 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 38, not repr. |
| 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. 34). |
| 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. 34). |
| 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 | Paris, Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Impressions graphiques. L’œuvre graphique de Giulio Paolini 1967-2000, 23 April - 21 May, no catalogue. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Figures/Intentions (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 20. |
| • | Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 34, repr. (artist’s proof). |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’œuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by Id. (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 90-91, 120, repr. no. 12. |
