Aula di disegno, 2005
GPE-0114
Drawing Classroom
Pencil drawing and collage on primed canvas
80 x 120 cm
Dated, titled and signed on the recto, centre, on the image of the open class register: “[date variable] Aula di disegno Giulio Paolini”; dated, titled and signed on the verso, where the four stretchers intersect: “[date variable] Aula di disegno Giulio Paolini”. According to the order with which the nine copies were printed, the dates are as follows: “11.5.2005”, “19.5.2005”, “03.6.2005”, “26.9.2005”, “04.10.2005”, “25.10.2005”, “18.11.2005”, “12.1.2006”, “27.1.2006”
No numbering
9 unnumbered copies
Each edition is distinguished by a different drawing outlined on the canvases and a different date written on the left page of the photographic class register. The dates indicate the progressive creation of the various editions over an eight-month period (11.05.2005, 19.05.2005, 03.06.2005, 26.09.2005, 04.10.2005, 25.10.2005, 18.11.2005, 12.01.2006, 27.01.2006).
Marco Noire Editore, Turin
Four primed canvases joined on the verso present the drawing in perspective of a "drawing room" with several tables, while clearly visible on the back wall is the drawing of a “painting”, articulated by a geometric composition that varies from one edition to another. Applied at the centre, in the point where the four canvases come into contact, is the photographic reproduction of a school register that, in the artist's own handwriting, records a variable date, the title of the multiple, and the author's signature.
The summoning to the "drawing room" queries the very idea of drawing, via the perspectival representation and its admirable artifices. It is a query that is always renewed from the start, as suggested by the variable date that is "updated" from one copy to another.
This theme constitutes the formal and conceptual nucleus of some large-scale works developed in 2006 (cf. Aula di pittura (La Sainte Vierge), GPO-0924; Aula di disegno (Happy Days), GPO-0925; Aula di scultura (circa 1923), GPO-0926); it can also be found in various works on paper made between 2005 and 2006 (GPC-1028, GPC-1044, GPC-1045, GPC-1046, GPC-1778).
1 The exception to the rule is the work dated “11.5.2005”, in which there is no drawing on the back wall.
| 2007 | Milan, Giò Marconi, Giulio Paolini, 4 May - 27 July; edition 27.01.2006. |
| 2011 | Turin, Galleria Carlina, Opere di artisti moderni e contemporanei, until 19 March; edition 27.01.2006. |
| 2019 | Turin, Noire Gallery, Giulio Paolini. Promemoria, 12 April - 10 June; edition 18.11.2005. |
| 2024-25 | Catania, Fondazione Puglisi Cosentino, I miti dell’arte contemporanea, 1 November 2024 - 31 May 2025, col. repr. pp. 84-85 (exhibition view), 87, referred to in the text p. 86; edition 25.10.2005. |
| • | 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. 115, col. repr. (edition 19.05.2005). |
| • | Carte Noire. Noire Editions 1980/2015 (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), col. repr. n. pag. (edition 27.01.2006). |
