Éclat, 1987
GPO-0611
Plaster cast fragments, shaped photo prints, glass sheets, white plinths
Photo prints and glass sheets 40 x 40 cm each, plinths 100 x 40 x 40 cm each, overall dimensions site-specific
Collection of the artist
On each of the plinths, positioned at regular intervals along the sides of the display space, a photograph of the room plan reproduces the arrangement of the same plinths, as it does a plot of straight lines that determine the cone of vision of the viewer’s gaze from the four corners of the space and from each plinth towards the centre. The drawings are shaped so that each time the viewer is shown the portion of his or her visual field corresponding to that point of view. On the photographs held down by a glass sheet, the plaster cast fragments of a head of Apollo indicate that a complete view is impossible, underscoring the partiality of each point of view that always and only perceives a single detail of the whole.
The title – which in French means "shard" or even "explosion", and was chosen because the work was first shown in France – underscores the fracturing of the visual unity and the fragmentation of a whole that remains precluded to the gaze.
Apollo Bust, 1st century AD Roman copy of an original from the Classical Age, white marble, Musei Reali – Museo di Antichità, Turin.
| 1987 | Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Giulio Paolini, 16 October - 15 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 3 p. 67, repr. pp. 45, 58, 65 (exhibition views). |
| 2001 | Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Palazzo Forti, Giulio Paolini. Premio Internazionale Koinè 2000 alla carriera, 15 September 2001 - 6 January 2002, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 74, repr. pp. 34 (details of the installation in Nantes 1987), 34-35 (study for the installation of the work in Verona), 37 (illustration of the drawing placed on each of the plinths in the Verona installation), entry by M. Disch pp. 34-36. |
| • | M. Disch, “L’atto espositivo. Appunti sul lavoro di Giulio Paolini”, in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), pp. 127, 155 endnote 25, repr. p. 125 (exhibition view Nantes 1987, detail). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 611 p. 627, repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. pp. 202, 203 (exhibition views Nantes 1987, details). |
