Il modello del tempio / Il tempio del modello, 1986
GPE-0059
The Model of the Temple / The Temple of the Model
Lithograph
Arches
Plate 49.5 x 52.2 cm folded, 49.5 x 104.5 cm open
Titled and signed on the recto: “Il modello del tempio Il tempio del modello” (bottom centre), “Giulio Paolini” (bottom right)
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
100 in Arabic numerals from 1/100 to 100/100
30 in Roman numerals from I/XXX to XXX/XXX
Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli
Marco Noire Editore, Turin
The print was commissioned from the artist by the Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli (Turin) – directed at the time by Rudi H. Fuchs and Johannes Gachnang – on the occasion of the exhibition Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, presented from 19 December 1986 to 29 March 1987. The initiative was part of the production of graphic editions destined for sale to support the museum's activities.
Double-sided grey cardboard folder, dark grey cloth spine, with dark grey ribbon ties, blank, closed format 50 x 57 cm. Contains the folded plate and a bi-folio with the title-page (on the recto) and the colophon (on the verso).
Includes information regarding the printer, publisher, measurements, edition size, author's signature, printer's stamp, place and date of printing (Turin, December 1986).
The print with a fold in the middle is made up of two sheets placed close together, which offer the same exact image of an antique print, duplicated mirror-like. An imaginary tower-like building, made up of various porticoed units and overlooking an Italian-style garden, is contained in the visual field of the eye located at the centre of the composition,1 as suggested by the two visual angles outlined in red that start from the pupil. Below, inscribed in autograph calligraphy in the white margin of the sheet, in the area corresponding to the opening in the encircling wall that frames the image, are the numbers from 1 to 9, a recurring motif in the artist's work, symbolizing totality and completeness (the number nine as the last one with only one digit and as such the summa of all those that come before, the nine Muses, the nine planets).
The eye contained in the vanishing point of the garden is at the heart of the composition. The visual angles that start from the eye form an intersection of diagonals – recalling the squaring of Disegno geometrico (GPO-0001) – which in turn become the vanishing lines of a perspective that embraces the two specular buildings.
The title Il modello del tempio / Il tempio del modello (The model of the temple / The temple of the model), which is a chiasmus, implies the same mirror-like duplication that is proposed by the image, in the manner of a circular dynamic that implodes within itself. “The model of the temple” designates the tower-like building as an original model, while the "temple of the model" points to the temple's imaginary nature. The parts mirror each other, without revealing anything: the temple remains an idea, a theoretical model, an archetype, a register of potentially unlimited hypotheses.
Generally speaking, the print made for the Castello di Rivoli is also meant to be a homage to the museum, seen as a temple of art, the model par excellence.
The same theme can be found in two works on paper from the same period (GPC-0717, GPC-1803).
1 The image taken from a drawing made by the Neoclassical French architect Claude Nicolas Ledoux represents the interior of his theatre in Besançon, reflected in the iris of an eye.
Eye: engraving portraying the interior of the theatre at Besançon designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux; reproduction from Claude Nicolas Ledoux, L’Architecture 2 (Paris: 1804), p. 113.
| 1986-87 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli, Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, 19 December 1986 - 29 March 1987, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 118 no. 61, repr. pp. 48-49. |
| 1987 | Rome, Galleria Pieroni, Giulio Paolini, from 7 February. |
| 1989 | Turin, Salone del Libro, Impressions graphiques. Progetti e collaborazioni editoriali di Giulio Paolini, 12-18 May, cat. no. 13 (section “Edizioni a tiratura numerata”), repr. (edition XXI/XXX). |
| 1990 | Tokyo, A.T. Gallery, Recent Italian Art, 27 September - 16 November, repr. pp. 32-33. |
| 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. 60). |
| 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. 60). |
| 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. 60). |
| 1996 | Certaldo, Castello di Santa Maria Novella, Dopopaesaggio. Figure e misure del giardino, [February], in the proceedings of the conference held on 3-4 February 1996 related to the exhibition, Dopopaesaggio. Figure e misure del giardino (Siena: Maschietto & Musolino and Associazione Culturale Castello di Santa Maria Novella, 1996) not repr. |
| 1996 | L’Aquila, MUSPAC Museo Sperimentale Arte Contemporanea, L'Arte Povera italiana, 1-13 July, no catalogue; edition 27/100. |
| 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. 60). |
| 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. 60). |
| 2000-01 | L’Aquila, MUSPAC Museo Sperimentale Arte Contemporanea, Natale a L’Aquila, 15 December 2000 - 15 January 2001, no catalogue; edition 27/100. |
| 2023 | Ghent, Vandenhove, Centre for Architecture and Art – Ghent University, Series/Series: Between Repetition and Doubling, 30 November - 16 December, no catalogue; artist’s proof. |
| 2025 | Zurich, Galerie Annemarie Verna, Contrastes, 9 October - 19 December; artist’s proof. |
| • | Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 60, repr. (edition XXI/XXX). |
| • | Collectie / Collection Jeanne & Charles Vandenhove, exhibition catalogue, Deurle, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens (Tielt: Lannoo, 2013), p, 159 (cited in the list of works from the collection), col. repr. p. 118 (artist’s proof). |
| • | Carte Noire. Noire Editions 1980/2015 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), repr. n. pag. (edition XVII/XXX). |
