Saffo, 1968
GPO-0144
Sappho
Photo prints mounted between plexiglas shapes, plexiglas stand
32 x 24.5 x 24.5 cm
Private collection
The two photographs mounted verso against verso between two plexiglas shapes – held in a circular base made from the same material – represent a life-size copy of an anonymous Greek head from the 7th-6th centuries BC portraying Sappho.
Through the figure of Sappho, the Greek poet who lived between the 7th and the 6th centuries BC, Paolini aims to summon to the context of the art exhibition "the explicit presence of poetry (or of its myth, of Alcaeus' ‘Tenth Muse’) in the place dedicated to it”.1
The same theme was developed in three other versions, with other sculptural subjects, made, respectively, that same year (GPO-0160), in 1969 (GPO-0163), and in 1981 (GPO-0439).
1 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. 2121969, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, 1969, n. pag. The attribution of the name "Tenth Muse", according to Paolini formulated by Sappho's peer Alcaeus, is taken from two previous works by the artist, Alceo and Decima musa both from 1966 (GPO-0110, GPO-0111).
Head of the Little Erculanean Woman, also known as head of Sappho, Roman copy of a Greek original, Museo Pio Clementino, Rome.
| 1968 | Turin, Galleria Notizie, Giulio Paolini, 10 April - 2 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works, not repr. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. 2121969, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, 1969, n. pag. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 144 p. 164, repr. |
