Ipotesi per una mostra, 1987

The work was conceived, along with Due misure, una proporzione, 1987 (GPO-0592) for a group exhibition curated by Bernard Guelton at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Reims which invited the artists participating in the event to produce an intervention in dialogue with the works in the museum's permanent collection.
In this work, set inside a room filled with paintings by Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot and featuring period furniture, Paolini displayed on a table at the centre a photograph representing the room itself, enlivened by several viewers so that the visitors to the exhibition would find themselves vis-à-vis "another" public. In this sense, the work harkens back to the project with the same title conceived in 1963 (GPO-0051).
To make the photograph, Paolini distributed around the museum room a number of viewers equal to the number of paintings on display. “Some of them stood before a painting or with their back to it, while others were scattered at random elsewhere. Everyone, including us, look at other gazes",1 as the artist tells us.

1 G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), p. 147.