Serait-ce là votre langage? (Le Temple de la Gloire), 1983-84
GPO-0508
Golden pillow and variable elements
Dismantled work
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, evocative of 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 variant the golden pillow is associated with laurel leaves, mixed in with artificial leaves taken from reproductions of previous works. The installation has had three different arrangements. In the first exhibition of the work in Milan in 1984, Paolini distributed the artificial leaves on the pillow, placed on a plinth, and the real ones on the ground. In 1985 in Ravenna he placed the pillow on a haphazard pile of wooden panels and glass sheets, disseminating the leaves in the midst of the overlapping elements. In 1988 in Rome he placed the pillow on top of a plexiglas plinth and replaced the photographic leaves with several torn fragments of drawing paper, scattered in part on the pillow and in part on the ground along with the laurel leaves.
Subtitle from the opéra-ballet by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Le Temple de la Gloire, 1745 and title from the same source, Act I, Scene II, line 54.
| 1984 | Milan, Studio Marconi, Giulio Paolini, from 9 February, not repr. |
| 1985 | Ravenna, Pinacoteca Comunale, Loggetta Lombardesca, Giulio Paolini. Tutto qui, 15 June - 22 September, not repr. |
| 1988-89 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Giulio Paolini, 24 November 1988 - 26 February 1989, not repr. (the version cited in the checklist of exhibited works on p. 95 was replaced with this version at the last minute). |
| • | Italiana. From Arte Povera to Transavanguardia, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama, Nicaf 3 (Milan: Fondazione Mudima Edizioni, 1994), repr. p. 8 (exhibition view Rome 1988-89). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), repr. p. 269 (dated “1983-85” in reference to the installation in Ravenna 1985). |
| • | C. Christov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1999), col. repr. p. 139 (exhibition view Rome 1988-89). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 508 p. 520, col. repr. (exhibition view Ravenna 1985). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. pp. 206-207 (exhibition view Rome 1988). |
