Versailles, 1966
GPO-0101
Primed canvases
Trapezoid part 256 cm in length, three triangular parts 10.5 x 59 cm, 12.5 x 59 cm, 16 x 59 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the trapezoidal canvas, upper left: "Giulio Paolini / Versailles / 1966"
Private collection
The work includes three small triangular canvases of different sizes, freely interchangeable from one installation to another, which, based on the viewer's position, modify the perspectival illusion.
Versailles involves a trapezoidal canvas placed in a corner of the floor – slightly distant from the walls – and a small triangular canvas, turned so that it is upright, thus transforming, at an optical level, two structurally distinct planes into one. The work includes three small triangular canvases of different sizes, freely interchangeable from one installation to another, which, based on the viewer's position, modify the perspectival illusion
The work is part of the research that distinguished the artist's output in 1966. Starting from the same premise – canvases juxtaposed so that they mark the corner of a room, seen as the elementary point of origin of a space – many different optical configurations were developed, calling into play the gap between the logical assumption – the elementary and rational given – and the illogical and mutating complexity of the perception.
| 1966 | Milan, Galleria dell’Ariete, Giulio Paolini, from 15 April, cat. no. 5, repr. (installation in the artist’s studio, opposite a wall); the work was not installed in a corner. |
| 2010 | Vaduz, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Che fare? Arte povera - Die historischen Jahre, 7 May - 5 September 2010, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 372, col. repr. p. 199 (exhibition view), entry by M. Disch p. 198; in the exhibition guide (Vaduz) cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 39 p. 17, catalogue entry by M. Disch p. 20, not repr. (idem in the English edition); not exhibited in Linz, but erroneously reproduced in the exhibition guide. |
| • | G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 51-52, repr. no. 47 p. 51; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by Id. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 166; reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | M. Fagiolo, "Glossario", in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), p. 25, repr. no. 64. |
| • | Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), p. 158, not repr. |
| • | L’avanguardia plurale. Italia 1960-70, exhibition catalogue, Pescara, Centro di Servizi Culturali, 1983, repr. p. 17. |
| • | 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. 10, repr. p. 12; republished in Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, exhibition catalogue, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli, 1986, p. 76, not repr. |
| • | A. Zevi, "Three Artistic Generations in Contemporary Italy", in Three Artistic Generations in Contemporary Italy, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, 1993, pp. 87-86 [sic], not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, op. cit. (Milan: 2003), col. repr. p. 162. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), p. 289, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 101 p. 129, repr. |
| • | R. Cuomo, Giulio Paolini. Lo spazio, 1967. In collezione 4 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2016), p. 52, not repr. |
| • | M. Tonelli, Pino Pascali. La scultura e il suo doppio (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 39, col. repr. pp. 120-121. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 111 (exhibition view Milan 1966). |
| • | F. Guzzetti, “‘Non si trattava di elaborare degli spazi astratti’: Giulio Paolini all’Ariete, 1966”, in Spazi astratti. Interferenze fra architettura e arti a Milano 1945-1970, edited by A.V. Navone, L. Tedeschi, and S. Setti (Milan: Electa, 2024), pp. 135-136, repr. pp. 132 (exhibition view Milan 1966), 133 (installation view in the artist’s studio, 1966, and at the home of a private collector, Turin, 1968). |
