Signore e signori..., 1988-92

The perfectly symmetrical view of the interior of a pavilion in the garden of Belvedere Castle in Vienna, inhabited by a male figure, is duplicated and rotated 180 degrees. In the area corresponding to the top of the arch turned in the direction of the garden two torn details of the reproduction of a cosmic subject have been inserted (in the image of the upper half the constellation of Hercules, in that of the lower half a sky at sunset), while standing out at the centre of the sheet is a white round that overlaps the shadow borne by the two specular figures.
For Paolini, the eighteenth-century print becomes a scenic space and the character an actor-viewer, waiting to witness an extraordinary event, announced by the white round that seems to allude to or prelude the magical instant of the conjunction of the two semicircular fragments in the absolute form of the circle. The visual hinge of the composition, the round underlies an ideal vision at 360 degrees, also suggested by the mirror-like duplication and by the two moments of colour, complementary to each other, as if to suggest a panoramic view between opposite polarities, that is, the vision of a symbolic Everything.
The print is based on the image conceived for the poster for the solo exhibition at the Salone dei Camuccini, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, in 1988, and illustrated in the catalogue of the exhibition. The title – understood to be the announcement that draws the attention of the public to the high point of a performance – connects the print to studies linked to the large-scale work made for the Naples exhibition (cf. GPO-0618). The male figure wearing a period costume is also the protagonist of the series of Studi per “Signore e Signori...”, made in 1988 (from GPC-0744 to GPC-0751).