ISI 1983-2003, 2003
GPE-0107
Silkscreen on Lexan Film
Two sheets 23.5 x 16 cm each
23.5 x 29 x 11.5 cm
Signed on the colophon included with the print: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the colophon included with the print
180 in Arabic numerals from 1/180 to 180/180
Fondazione ISI Istituto Interscambio Scientifico, Turin
The multiple was commissioned from the artist by the Fondazione ISI Istituto Interscambio Scientifico, Turin, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the research institute – presided over by Tullio Regge and directed by Mario Rasetti at the time – as a gift for its members and patrons.
Orange card stock holder with top opening, 24.6 x 18.4 cm, front side with circular cut-out. Contains the multiple and a double-sided brochure: on the first side the acronym ISI (in typographical lettering) and the dates 1983-2003 (in red, manuscript by Paolini), on the second side a quote from Thomas Kuhn (with a note on his role as a member of the Scientific Committee of ISI from 1983 to 1989) and the acknowledgements, on the third side the colophon, on the fourth side the logo of the patron curated by the artist. When the foldout is inserted in the holder, the circular cut-out reveals the acronym ISI reproduced on the first panel.
Includes information regarding the printing technique, date of printing (October 2003), and edition size, with layout for installation of the multiple. Numbering and signature bottom centre.
The two polycarbonate sheets, with a fold in the middle, arranged on a support surface opened at an angle of around 45 degrees and brought together edge on edge, recreate the situation represented in the drawing impressed on the sheet. The image, borrowed from a nineteenth-century drawing handbook, and duplicated mirror-like on both sheets, reproduces the layout of the vision in perspective, with two figures and a complex drawing, which from one side to the other of the translucid sheets generates a pinwheel of overlappings and multiplications, in which the figures end up observing the reciprocal visual trajectories. The two angular elements outlined in the drawing feature the numbers, in red, referred to the title, which correspond to the date of the anniversary of Fondazione ISI, which commissioned the multiple. The numbers are inscribed so that a reading of the two dates implies points of view that mirror each other, recalling and amplifying the dynamic underlying the multiplied image.
The nineteenth-century image was used twice before in the artist's works on paper, dated to the mid-1980s: Due per quattro, 1984 (GPC-0654) and Senza titolo, 1985 (GPC-0669).
Perspective drawing from Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-Le-Duc, Comment on devient un dessinateur (Paris: J. Hetzel et Cie, 1885), p. 76 (“Perspective (septième exemple)”).
| • | Giulio Paolini. Impressions graphiques, l’opera grafica (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 2005), update supplement 1996-2005 to the volume Impressions graphiques. L’opera grafica 1967-1992 di Giulio Paolini (Turin: Marco Noire Editore, 1992), cat. no. 108, col. repr. |
