Una poesia, 1966
GPO-0108
A Poem
Tempera on hard plastic, white drawing pins, primed canvas
30 x 24 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso, upper centre: “Giulio Paolini / Una poesia / 1966”
La Gaia Collection, Busca (Cuneo)
The nine letters in the title are written in tempera in nine different colours on a sheet of stiff plastic, pinned to a primed canvas that is just slightly larger.
Ever since its early use here, writing in Paolini's work tends not to be just an image of itself, but a drawing as well. The nine equidistant letters that spell out the words "una poesia" (a poem) articulate the surface of the sheet akin to the units of a designed pattern; at the same time, the arrangement of the letters traces the grid of a spatial metric.
The same theme was formulated in two other variants from the same year (GPO-0107, GPO-0109), in at least six variants on paper executed between 1966 and 1985 (GPC-0080, GPC-0113, GPC-0114, GPC-0115, GPC-0116, GPC-0230), and in a print edition made in 1967 (GPE-0002).
| 1966 | Milan, Galleria dell’Ariete, Giulio Paolini, from 15 April, cat. no. 8, not repr. |
| 2004 | Busca (Cuneo), Collezione La Gaia, Collezione La Gaia, from 7 June, no catalogue. |
| 2022 | Mamiano di Traversetolo (Parma), Fondazione Magnani-Rocca, Lucio Fontana. Autoritratto, 12 March - 3 July, ripr. col. p. 135, referred to in the interview by C. Lonzi to L. Fontana p. 111. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with C. Lonzi, in C. Lonzi, Autoritratto (Bari: De Donato Editore, 1969), pp. 193-194; in the reprint (Milan: Et al./Edizioni, 2010), p. 146; English edition (Brussels-London: Divided Publiishing, 2021), p. 172. |
| • | G. Paolini, "Note di lavoro", in the version published in Id., Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 43, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 69. |
| • | E. Volpato, "Metamorfosi del vuoto: 1960-2006", in L’immagine del vuoto. Una linea di ricerca nell’arte in Italia 1958-2006, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Museo Cantonale d’Arte (Milan: Skira editore, 2006), p. 78, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 108 p. 134, col. repr. |
| • | R. Cuomo, Giulio Paolini. Lo spazio, 1967. In collezione 4 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2016), pp. 66, 68, col. repr. p. 63. |
| • | A. Acoccella, “Paolini, Giulio”, in Dizionario Lucio Fontana, edited by L. P. Nicoletti, (Macerata: Quodlibet, 2023), p. 408, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 111 (exhibition view Milan 1966). |
| • | B. Benedetti, “Anni luce. Cronistoria di un esordio”, in Giulio Paolini. Et in Arcadia ego, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna Achille Forti (Imola: Manfredi Edizioni, 2024), p. 78, not repr. |
| • | 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. 125, 130, 134, repr. p. 127 (exhibition view Milan 1966). |
