Senza titolo, 1964
GPO-0064
Untitled
Perforated plywood panel, brass split pins
90 x 80 cm
Signed and dated on the verso on a white paper square: “Giulio Paolini“ (upper left), “1964” (lower left)
Private collection, Turin
Four brass-coloured split pins inserted from the recto at the centre of the wooden panel fasten on the verso a colour reproduction of an explosion. The theme was reproduced in a smaller version made during the same year, which is distinguished for its use of masonite and for a different image on the verso (GPO-0065).
The work is the continuation of a group of works made in 1963 whose common denominator is the presence of an intervention on both the recto and the verso of the painting (from GPO-0028 to GPO-0049). Surfaces of various types (painted paper, graph paper, photographic reproductions, shaped panels) take turns appearing on the recto, while on the verso (hidden from view) we find the details of images and printed words taken from magazines or from books.
The subtraction of the painting from its function as a vehicle for an image and queried at the moment of its perception as such also harks back to a series of works made in 1964 involving natural plywood panels.
| 1964 | Termoli, Palazzo del Comune, IX Premio Castello Svevo Termoli, August, cat. no. 159, not repr. |
| 1969 | Modena, Galleria della Sala Comunale di Cultura, 1a rassegna biennale delle gallerie di tendenza italiane, 4 October - 27 November, repr. n. pag. (recto). |
| • | Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), repr. nos. 45-46 (recto and verso). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 64 p. 96, col. repr. (recto and verso). |
