Sette fotogrammi della luce, 1969
GPO-0174
Seven Photograms of Light
Photo emulsion on canvas
Seven parts 25 x 20 cm each, overall dimensions 25 x 150 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the third canvas, lower stretcher bar, centre: “Giulio Paolini / Sette fotogrammi della luce / 1969”
Fonds national d’art contemporain, CNAP, Paris
Acquired in 1994, inventory no. 93455 (1-7)
From 1 December 1994 to July 2002 on loan at Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
The seven canvases must be mounted in a horizontal row at intervals equal to 1.5-2 cm. The correct sequence is the one that follows the red numbering on the verso of the canvases.
The seven illegible details, made out of the oversized and out-of-focus enlargement of a negative, are limited to "withholding the irreducible quality of an instant”,1 the artist remarks. Instead of reproducing a subject, the photographs simply express the infinitesimal action of the light on the photosensitive film.
The same theme was formulated in three other variants from the same year, respectively made up of one, four, and seven photo stills (GPO-0171, GPO-0172, GPO-0173).
1 G. Paolini, Giulio Paolini, vol. Figures/Intentions (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 25.
| 1992-93 | Paris, Galerie Di Meo, Giulio Paolini. Œuvres de 1963 à 1978, 27 November 1992 - 30 January 1993, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 14 p. 67, repr. pp. 40-41 (incorrect installation). |
| 2015 | Paris, Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Qu’est-ce que la photographie?, 4 March - 1 June, repr. pp. 51-57, note about the work by C. Chéroux p. 50. |
| 2016 | Paris, Musée national d’art moderne – Centre Pompidou, Un Art Pauvre, 8 June - 28 August, no catalogue. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), repr. pp. 304-305 (elements arranged incorrectly). |
| • | "L’immagine in/possibile", in L’immagine in/possibile. Attorno alla fotografia negli anni settanta, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Fondazione Zappettini, 2006, repr. p. 53 (elements arranged incorrectly). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 174 p. 192, repr. |
| • | L. Iamurri, Giulio Paolini. Teresa nella parte di Giovanna d’Arco in prigione (tavola ottica), 1969. In collezione 5 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2018), p. 46, repr. pp. 44-45. |
