L’altra figura, 1984
GPO-0530
The Other Figure
Two whole and one fractured plaster casts, white plinths
Two casts 64 x 45 x 31 cm each, two plinths 120 x 30 x 30 cm each, overall dimensions 185 x 250 x 190 cm
The work was executed in a six numbered editions plus one (?) unnumbered edition.
| 1/6 | The Rachofsky Collection, Dallas |
| 2/6 | Marelli Ricciardi Collection |
| 3/6 | Private collection |
| 4/6 | SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen |
| 5/6 | Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney |
| 6/6 | AGO Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
| N.n. | Present whereabouts unknown |
| 4/6 | Inventory no. 3155 |
| 5/6 | Acquired in 1987, inventory no. 349.1987.a-c |
| 6/6 | Acquired in 1987, inventory no. 87/173 |
The two plinths are not arranged so that they face each other, but are instead staggered by 30 cm, at a distance of around ca. 60 cm from each other. The fragments scattered on the ground should be greater in number and placed closer together at the centre (using the larger fragments), gradually thinning out as they move outwards (using the smaller fragments). Depending on the availability of space and the conditions of the display, the fragments should be more or less concentrated in the central area between the two plinths – in any event moving beyond it, even for a short distance – or dispersed, with the single fragments directed towards the peripheral space.
Two plaster casts of the bust of the so-called Eros of Centocelle by Praxiteles are placed one in front of the other, on two slightly staggered plinths, as if they were looking at the pieces of the third cast exploded on the ground. Or, in the artist's words: "Each of the two figures appears as if they were wondering whether those remains might not be a part of themselves, or perhaps the parts of ‘another figure’, after all, identical to them”.1
The same theme can be found in five other versions, made respectively in 1979-80 (GPO-0419), in 1983 (GPO-0501), in 1984 (GPO-0530), and in 1986 (GPO-0577, GPO-0578).
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 419 p. 427.
Eros of Centocelle, Roman copy of the 4th century BC Eros by Praxiteles, h 79 cm, Musei Vaticani, Rome.
| 1986 | Cologne, Galerie Paul Maenz, Giulio Paolini. Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione” (cerimoniale: in prospettiva), 4 February - 1 March; edition 5/6. |
| 1987 | Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Acquisitions from the Komon, Salkauskas and Horton Funds, 5-31 May, no catalogue; edition 5/6. |
| 1987 | New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, A Sculpture Show, 9 June - 3 July; edition 6/6. |
| 1988 | Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, From the Southern Cross: A View of World Art 1940-1988, 18 May - 3 July, touring to: Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, 4 August - 18 September, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 281, repr. p. 217, entry by A. Bond; edition 5/6. |
| 1994 | Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Great Gifts Great Patrons, 17 August - 19 October, not repr.; edition 5/6. |
| 2002 | Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Arte Povera: Art from Italy 1967-2002, 23 August - 11 November, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 138, col. repr. p. 88, commentary by A. Bond p. 89; edition 5/6. |
| 2007 | Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art, Fast Forward: Contemporary Collections for the Dallas Museum of Art, 11 February - 20 May, col. repr. p. 178 (installation view at Rachofsky Collection); edition 1/6. |
| 2008 | Sydney, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Revolutions – Forms That Turn. 16th Biennale of Sydney, 18 June - 7 September, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 295, not repr., edition 5/6. |
| 2009 | Verona, Studio La Città, Summer Show. “Esotico contemporaneo”, 27 June - 5 September 2009; edition 4/6. |
| 2010 | Milan, Fondazione Stelline, Elogio della semplicità, 25 March - 20 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 131, repr. p. 87; edition 3/6 (exhibited with erroneously sized plinths). |
| 2010 | Rome, MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma, the work was exhibited on the occasion of the opening of the new wing of the Museum, from 27 May; edition 4/6. |
| 2011-12 | London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Postmodernism: Style and Subversion, 1970-1990, 24 September 2011 - 15 January 2012, touring to: Rovereto, MART Museo d'arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, 25 February - 3 June 2012, repr. p. 26 (exhibition view Cologne 1986); edition 4/6. |
| 2013 | Dallas, The Rachofsky House, Parallel Views: Italian and Japanese Art from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, 1 February - 31 October 2013, no catalogue; edition 1/6. |
| 2013 | Sindelfingen, Schauwerk, Incontri. Zeitgenössische italienische Kunst, 20 October 2013 - 14 September 2014, col. repr. p. 149 (installation view at Schauwerk Sindelfingen Collection), referred to in the text by N. Bätzner p. 67, entry by S. Frank pp. 137-138; col. repr. in the exhibition brochure; edition 4/6. |
| 2016 | Dallas, The Warehouse, Identity Revisited, 1 February - 4 December, no catalogue; edition 1/6. |
| 2017 | Dallas, The Warehouse, Thinking Out Loud: Notes for An Evolving Collection, 10 February - 30 April, no catalogue; edition 1/6. |
| 2017 | Florence, Galleria Palatina, Ytalia. Energia Pensiero Bellezza. Tutto è connesso, 2 June - 1 October, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 215, col. repr. pp. 124, 125 (exhibition views), referred to in the text by L. Conte p. 195; edition 3/6. |
| 2019 | Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Cranbrook Museum of Art, Landlord Colors: On Art, Economy, and Materiality, 21 June - 6 October; edition 1/6. |
| 2022-23 | Dallas, The Warehouse, Open Storage: 25 Years Collecting, 26 August 2022 - 29 April 2023, no catalogue; edition 1/6. |
| 2024 | Dallas, The Warehouse, For What It’s Worth: Value Systems in Art since 1960, 2 February - 29 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 308, col. repr. on cover and p. 161, referred to in the conversation between T. Feulmer and L. Le Feuvre p. 25, and in the introduction p. 155. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 419 p. 427. |
| • | Paul Maenz Ausstellungen / Exhibitions. Saison / Season 1985-86 (Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1986), repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Cologne 1986). |
| • | Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1986, vol. 2, repr. p. 37. |
| • | Avant-Garde in the Eighties, exhibition catalogue, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1987, col. repr. n. pag. (erroneously dated “1983”, work not installed by the artist). |
| • | A. Davie, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Handbook (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1988), repr. p. 100. |
| • | Paul Maenz Köln 1970-1980-1990. Eine Avantgarde-Galerie und die Kunst unserer Zeit / An Avant-Garde Gallery and the Art of Our Time, edited by G. de Vries (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1991), repr. p. 204. |
| • | AGNSW. Collections (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1994), entry by A. Bond p. 260, col. repr. |
| • | M. Unterdörfer, Die Rezeption der Antike in der Postmoderne: der Gipsabguss in der italienischen Kunst der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Weimar: VDG Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, 1998), pp. 49-50, 169-170, cat. no. 52 p. 145, repr. no. 47 p. 230. |
| • | Art Gallery of New South Wales. Handbook, edited by B. James and E. Capon (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1999), col. repr. p. 74. |
| • | N. Bätzner, Arte Povera. Zwischen Erinnerung und Ereignis: Giulio Paolini, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Jannis Kounellis (Nuremberg: Verlag für moderne Kunst, 2000), repr. p. 100. |
| • | The Art Gallery of New South Wales. Collections (Sydney: The Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000), entry by A. Bond p. 260, col. repr. |
| • | Arte moderna. L’arte contemporanea dal secondo dopoguerra ad oggi, vol. 37 (Milan: Editoriale Giorgio Mondadori, 2001), p. 317, repr. (the plaster fragments on the floor are not installed correctly). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 530 p. 542, col. repr. |
| • | B. Piatti Morganti, Paradigmi e rivoluzioni nella storia del pensiero linguistico (Fano: Aras Edizioni, 2012), col. repr. on cover. |
| • | A. Bond, The Idea of Art (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2015), pp. 138-140, col. repr. on cover (installation view at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney). |
| • | L. Malavasi, “Un’altra figura: le immagini nell’Italia degli anni Ottanta”, in Bianco e nero 77, no. 585 (Rome), May-August, 2016, p. 13, repr. p. 10. |
| • | Dieci anni in Galtarossa. Misura del tempo. Michele Alberto Sereni, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Studio La Città, 2017, col. repr. p. 113 (exhibition view Verona 2009). |
| • | A. Soldaini, “‘Cos’altro c’è da dire?’”, in Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), p. 36, repr. |
| • | T. Bick, Michelangelo Pistoletto. Figuration and cultural politics (Yale University Press, 2025), p. 70, repr. no. 47 p. 71 (exhibition view Cologne 1986). |
