Senza titolo, 1961

A ruling pen is placed on the upper edge of a wooden panel with a double thickness, painted in white tempera, as proof of the original linear profile that determined the raised surface of the panel. The assemblage is covered with a transparent polyethylene sheet.
The work is part of the study on the relationship between the support and an object that by convention is preliminary to or implicit in the realization of a painting. In the artist's words: “The goal was to come to terms with the painting vis-à-vis what the idea of the picture could stimulate or suggest. Indeed, in the sense of trying to grasp the reason for the physical presence of the picture as an object. […] It was the attempt to provide a work with a form, without the disappointment of seeing it completed. Without the intimidating burden of its meaning”.1

1 G. Paolini interviewed by N. Orengo, in Fuoricampo 1, no. 2 (Turin), June, 1973, p. 5; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 165.