Et qui t’adore plus que moi? (Le Temple de la Gloire), 1983
GPO-0492
Golden pillow, fragment of a plaster cast, crumpled photographic reproduction
12 x 58 x 43 cm
Private collection
Le Temple de la Gloire is the general subtitle of a work conceived in 1983 and reformulated in overall nine variants (GPO-0490, GPO-0492, GPO-0493, GPO-0500, GPO-0508, GPO-0510, GPO-0526, GPO-0559, GPO-0808). A constant element is the golden pilllow, on which Paolini each time proposes an "offer", while the title quotes a phrase or a verse from the opera libretto of Le Temple de la Gloire (1745) by Jean-Philippe Rameau. Depending on the exhibition itself, the arrangement of the pillow also varies, at times integrated with complementary elements.
The work is based on the contrast between the eloquence of the elegant pillow, evoking a solemn ritual – in a dimension that is outside of the flow of time – and the ephemeral futility of the object offered, which is prosaic and inconsistent.
In this second version, the "offer" placed on the pillow is made up of a plaster cast of the head of the Athena Lemnia, broken at the level of the eyes, and a crumpled up colour reproduction of a view of ruins at dusk, which emerges from the hollow of the cast, as if to simulate the missing part of the face.
• Athena Lemnia, Roman copy of the 5th century BC bronze original by Phidias, marble, Museo Civico Archeologico, Bologna.
• Subtitle from the opéra-ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Le Temple de la Gloire, 1745 and title from the same source, Act III, Scene I, line 4.
| • | Belvedere dell’arte. Orizzonti, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Forte Belvedere (Milan: Skira editore, 2003), col. repr. p. 121 (work not installed by the artist). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 492 p. 507, col. repr. (with incorrect dimensions of the base “80 x 45 x 45 cm”). |
