Delos, 1976
GPO-0333
Coloured pencils and collage on paper
Nine framed parts 53 x 33 cm each, overall dimensions 165 x 105 cm
Private collection
Starting from the first element at the top left, a collage of white rectangles foreshadows the assemblage of the units that follow, while beginning with the second element, a coloured pencil drawing of rectangles (including the entire colour spectrum) gradually retraces the position of the units immediately preceding them. Each time, an interval corresponding to the position of the element in question with respect to the whole separates the collage from the drawing.
In the artist's own words: “According to myth, [Delos is] the island on which no one could be born or die. Indeed, each sheet simulates its own absence in the empty space that, in each one of them, separates the past from the future (the “seen”, the succession of the chromatic scale, from the "visible", the succession of white rectangles)".1
The same theme was reformulated in a subsequent variant, made in 1977 (GPO-0411).
1 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Atto unico in tre quadri, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi (Milan: Gabriele Mazzotta editore, 1979), p. 78.
| 1977 | New York, Sperone-Westwater-Fischer, Giulio Paolini, 15 January - 15 February. |
| 1978 | Naples, Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes, Giulio Paolini, from 9 February, no catalogue. |
| 1982 | Turin, Galleria Christian Stein, Anselmo, Barbera, Dibbets, Fabro, Kounellis, Merz, Paolini, Parmiggiani, Penone, Zorio, December. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Atto unico in tre quadri, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi (Milan: Gabriele Mazzotta editore, 1979), p. 78 (note to the work published in the visitor's guide drawn up for the solo exhibition at Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes, Naples 1978). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Atto unico in tre quadri, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi, 1979, repr. p. 78. |
| • | La collection Christian Stein. Un regard sur l’art italien (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée and Art Édition, 1992), repr. p. 180, catalogue entry p. 291. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 333 p. 342, col. repr. |
