Mimesi, 1975
GPO-0318
Mimesis
Casts in patinated resin with marble support
Two casts 50 x 20 x 40 cm each
Museo del Novecento, Milan
Gift of Bianca and Mario Bertolini, 2015, inventory no. M9 Bertolini 582
Two patinated resin casts of the head of a diadumenos in bronze are arranged opposite each other, just slightly staggered so their gazes cross.
The exchange of gazes between the two identical figures questions the very reasons for the existence of the work and its coming in to being by way of our gaze. In the artist's own words: “When I place two identical editions of the same antique sculpture one in front of the other it is not because I want to be the artificer or the rediscoverer of those sculptures; rather, my purpose is to be the observer who perceives the distance that separates them, hence, all the chances for a relationship or the lack of one that are determined between them, and between those images and ourselves”.1
The same theme, formulated for the first time that same year with two heads of Praxiteles’ Hermes (GPO-0283) as well as in the form of the multiple, with two heads of the Medici Venus was also formulated in another variant made during the same year (GPO-0318), as well as in two later versions featuring whole figure casts made in 1976 (GPO-0330) and in 1988 (GPO-0620), respectively.
1 G. Paolini interviewed by F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 209.
Head of young man wearing a winners’ band, Roman copy of a Greek original, Glyptothek, Munich.
| 1976 | Milan, Studio Marconi, Giulio Paolini, from 5 February. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 209. |
| • | “Il sublime e l’insignificante. Il mito dei due amanti o l’idea del sublime di Giulio Paolini”, in Gran Bazaar 4 (Milan), September-October, 1979, repr. p. 157 (exhibition view Milan 1976). |
| • | E. Lucie-Smith, Art in the Seventies (Oxford: Phaidon Press Limited, 1980), repr. p. 101 (exhibition view Milan 1976). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Werke und Schriften 1960-1980 (Lucerne: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1981), repr. n. pag. |
| • | Giulio Paolini (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. on the front and back of the slipcase containing the two volumes of the publication. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 113. |
| • | Giulio Paolini al Palazzo della Ragione, exhibition catalogue, Padua, Salone del Palazzo della Ragione (Milan: Fabbri Editori, 1995), repr. p. 25. |
| • | M. Unterdörfer, Die Rezeption der Antike inn der Postmoderne: der Gipsabguss in der italienischen Kunst der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Weimar: VDG Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, 1998), pp. 49, 50, 170, cat. no. 31 p. 141, repr. no. 45 p. 228. |
| • | J. de Sanna, Forma. L’idea degli artisti 1943-1997 (Ancona-Milan: Universitaria Costa & Nolan, 1999), repr. n. pag. (erroneously dated “1975-76”). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 318 p. 327, repr. |
| • | La donazione Bianca e Mario Bertolini, edited by C. Baldacci and D. Giacon (Milan-Cinisello Balsamo: Museo del Novecento and Silvana Editoriale, 2015), col. repr. pp. 19 and 166 (in the Donation's list). |
