Orizzontale, 1963
GPO-0050
Horizontal
Dismantled work
Orizzontale is a project that foresees the following situation: “two parallel, rectangular planes (painted in dull black) separated by a tiny gap are suspended horizontally at the optical axis level (160 cm from the ground). The surface of the planes is equal to the surface of the room minus the perimetric passage needed by the viewer. The eye perceives the horizon of light bordered by the two planes".1
The only time the work was produced, achieving unsatisfactory results, was in a room of the Italian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1976, with two large stretchers (350 x 350 cm each) covered with black-painted canvas and hung a short distance from each other by four cables stretched from the floor to the ceiling. The technical difficulty in achieving the perfect horizontality of the two suspended planes dissuaded the artist from mounting the project any further.
In between the structural studies carried out on the painting in 1960-63 and the subsequent ones on the relationship between the work and the viewer, Orizzontale constitutes, along with Ipotesi per una mostra (GPO-0051), the artist's first attempt to “radicalize the perceptive phenomenon, in the mental sense of offering the eye of the beholder the reality of what is before our eyes".2
1 G. Paolini, note drafted in 1963, published among others in G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 13, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 39.
2 G. Paolini in G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 38, 40 (revised translation, republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant [Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003], p. 126), reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019), pp. 38, 40.
| 1976 | Venice, Giardini di Castello, Biennale di Venezia: XXXVII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte. Ambiente/Arte 1915-1976, 18 July - 10 October, not repr. (project of the work cited on p. 200). |
| • | G. Paolini in G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 33-34; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003, p. 126); reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 13, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 51. |
| • | G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 33-34, repr. no. 27 p. 35 (elevation and axonometric projection); republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by Id. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), pp. 122, 126; reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | I. Calvino, “La squadratura”, in G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. IX, repr. pp. 12-13 (elevation and axonometric projection); republished in Semiotiche della pittura. I classici. Le ricerche, edited by L. Corrain (Rome: Meltemi editore, 2004), p. 227, repr. p. 228 (elevation); new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 11, repr. pp. 38-39 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | Drawing/Transparence. Disegno/Trasparenza, edited by A. Bonito Oliva (Macerata: La Nuovo Foglio, 1976), repr. n. pag. (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | M. Fagiolo, “Glossario”, in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), p. 33, repr. nos. 37-38 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | A.C. Quintavalle, “Paolini: scritture”, ibid., p. 53. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Mannheim, Mannheimer Kunstverein, 1977, repr. no. II p. 8 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | G. Celant, Ambiente/Arte. Dal Futurismo alla Body Art (Venice: Edizioni La Biennale di Venezia and Alfieri Edizioni d’Arte, 1977), p. 100, repr. pp. 106-107 (elevation, axonometric projection, and exhibition view Venice 1976). |
| • | C. Ferrari, “Giulio Paolini”, in Luoghi del silenzio imparziale, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Palazzo della Permanente (Milan: Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Editore, 1981), p. 110, not repr. |
| • | L’avanguardia plurale. Italia 1960-70, exhibition catalogue, Pescara, Centro di Servizi Culturali, 1983, repr. p. 17 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | A. Mammì, I. Panicelli, “Giulio Paolini. Bibliografia”, in Giulio Paolini. La Casa di Lucrezio, exhibition catalogue, Spoleto, Palazzo Rosari Spada (Casalecchio di Reno: Grafis Edizioni, 1984), p. 9, not repr.; republished in Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, exhibition catalogue, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli, 1986, p. 74, not repr. |
| • | Del Arte Povera a 1985, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Palacio de Cristal, Palacio de Velázquez, Parque del Retiro, 1985, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Venice 1976). |
| • | G. Celant, The Knot Arte Povera (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1985), repr. p. 227 (exhibition view Venice 1976). |
| • | F. Poli, “Note di lettura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), p. 30, not repr.; republished in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), p. 49, not repr. |
| • | J. de Sanna, “Arte Povera”, in Le nuove tendenze dell’arte. Ricerche internazionali dal 1945 ad oggi, edited by F. Poli (Turin: Rosenberg & Sellier, 1995), p. 145, not repr. |
| • | R. Deidier, “La lingua della visione: Calvino e Giulio Paolini”, in Id., Le forme del tempo. Saggio su Italo Calvino (Milan: Guerini Studio, 1995), p. 158, repr. no. 10 (elevation and axonometric projection); republished in Id., Le forme del tempo. Miti, fiabe, immagini di Italo Calvino (Palermo: Sellerio editore, 2004), pp. 135, 137, repr. no. 10. |
| • | R. Lambarelli, “Giulio Paolini”, in Contemporary Artists. Fourth Edition, edited by J. Cerrito (Detroit: St. James Press, 1996), p. 891, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, op. cit. (Milan: 2003), repr. pp. 94-95 (elevation and axonometric projection), 97 (exhibition view Venice 1976). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 50 p. 83, repr. (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | A. Portesio, “’Quello che per il pittore è la squadratura della tela, per lo scrittore è l’incipit’. L’arte di Giulio Paolini raccontata da Italo Calvino. Con un’intervista a Giulio Paolini”, in Avanguardia 14, no. 40 (Rome), June, 2009, p. 81, repr. p. 84. |
| • | M. Minini, Pizzini – Sentences on Conceptual Artists (and Others) (Milan: Mousse Publishing, 2010), repr. p. 163 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | “Hypothesis for an Exhibition”, exhibition catalogue, New York, Dominique Lévy Gallery, 2014, repr. p. 188 (elevation and axonometric projection). |
| • | L. Meloni, “Praticare lo spazio: environment, azioni e ambienti negli anni Settanta”, in Anni Settanta. La rivoluzione nei linguaggi dell’arte, edited by C. Casero and E. Di Raddo (Milan: Postmedia Books, 2015), p. 156, not repr. |
| • | R. Cuomo, Giulio Paolini. Lo spazio, 1967. In collezione 4 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2016), pp. 40, 42, 44, 48, repr. pp. 46 (axonometric projection), 47 (elevation). |
| • | I. Bernardi, “Giulio Paolini 1963. Un autore (ancora) sconosciuto”, in Arte italiana 1960-1964. Identità culturale, confronti internazionali, modelli americani, edited by F. Fergonzi and F. Tedeschi, proceedings of the study day promoted by Museo del Novecento and Gallerie d’Italia, Milan, 25 October 2013 (Milan: Scalpendi Editore, 2017), pp. 45-46, repr. no. 5 p. 46 (elevation). |
| • | I. Bernardi, “Sulla soglia. Giulio Paolini e la Biennale di Venezia”, in Crocevia Biennale, edited by F. Castellani and E. Charans (Milan: Scalpendi Editore, 2017), p. 240, not repr. |
| • | F. Guzzetti, “Visible Lines of the Imagination”, in Paper Media: Boetti, Calzolari, Kounellis, exhibition catalogue, New Paltz, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York (Cold Spring: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, 2019), pp. 11-12, not repr. |
| • | F. Guzzetti, “Era finora: distanze e intersezioni”, in Giulio Paolini. Era finora (Milan: Edizioni Fondazione Luigi Rovati and Johan & Levi editore, 2022), p. 65, repr. pp. 34 (elevation), 35 (axonometric projection). |
| • | A. Soldaini, G. Paolini, “In dialogo”, in Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), p. 93, repr. (elevation). |
