Unalinea, 1966
GPO-0104
Oneline
Tempera on unprimed canvas
56.8 x 79 x 65.5 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the canvas on the left, centre: "Giulio Paolini / Unalinea / 1966"
Massimo De Carlo, Milano
The work can be installed in either the upper or lower corner of a room.
Three unprimed canvases featuring one curvilinear side are juxtaposed in the corner of a room thus forming an illusory circle. The outer border is marked by purple paint in a continuous line – as suggested by the title (“Oneline”).
The same formal configuration was formulated in a variant of the work made during the same year involving three canvases painted with phosphorescent paint (GPO-0103).
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.
| • | Catalogo nazionale Bolaffi d’arte moderna n. 10, vol. I: Critico-finanziario (Turin: Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 1975), repr. p. 379. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 104 p. 131, repr. |
