5 novembre 1940, 1971
GPO-0215
5 November 1940
Photo emulsion on canvas
24 x 35.5 cm
Titled, signed, and dated on the verso, upper stretcher bar: "5 novembre 1940 Giulio Paolini 1971"
Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, Turin
Gift of Anna Paolini Piva, 25 October 2012, archive no. GPO-0215
The photographic canvas portrays Anna Piva – the artist's future wife – at the age of nine, at the time of Giulio Paolini's birth, referred to in the title.
“Almost a birth certificate: the artist ‘sees’ in this photograph (Anna, as a child, in Africa) the imaginary proof of a future past",1 Paolini remarks. As if by going back in time, thanks to the image of Anna as a child, the artist could imagine that his life (already lived) was still before him.
1 G. Paolini, Giulio Paolini, vol. Figures/Intentions (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 25.
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini, vol. Figures / Intentions (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 25. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Figures/Intentions (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 15 (erroneously dated "1970" in the caption on p. 25). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 215 p. 224, repr. |
