Belvedere, 1991
GPO-0679
Collage on black card stock
Five framed parts 72 x 52 cm each, overall dimensions 72 x 268 cm
Titled, signed, and dated on the verso of the fifth element, centre: "Belvedere / Giulio Paolini / 1991"
Private collection, Lugano
In the sequence of five collages lined up at regular intervals, the following appear in this order: the blower of soap bubbles from Les bulles de savon (ca. 1734) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, leaning up against a table before an empty seating area in a frescoed room; the same young man seen from close up and associated with an astral sphere; in the two following elements, celestial bodies contained in black and white geometric surfaces, while in the last sheet the spheres appear to be disintegrated in a plurality of fragments.
The work is part of a group of works with the same title, made between 1990 and 1996, whose common denominator is a figure located in either an elevated or a central position – in a "belvedere", as the title suggests – and correlated with one or more astral spheres, understood to be the symbolic model of incomparable perfection (cf. GPO-0666, GPO-0667, GPO-0679, GPO-0698, GPO-0700, GPO-0714, GPO-0715, GPO-0776).
• Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Les bulles de savon, c. 1734, oil on canvas, 61 x 63.2 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
• First element: image taken from a printed page with the captions “Toulouse” and “Occitanie”, representing the Salle des Illustres in the Capitole in Toulouse, built in 1674 and rebuilt in 1892.
| 1993 | Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Inside Out - Museo Città Eventi, 27 March - 16 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 24 p. 108 (erroneously dated “1991-92”), not repr. |
| 1993 | Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, Three Artistic Generations in Contemporary Italy, 2 December 1993 - 9 January 1994, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 65, col. repr. pp. 52 (detail, first state), 54 (exhibition view, first state). |
| 2004 | Mantua, Centro Internazionale d’Arte e di Cultura di Palazzo Te, Bambini nel tempo. L’infanzia e l’arte, 9 May - 4 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 85, not repr. |
| 2005 | Milan, Fonte d’Abisso Arte, Nello spazio nel cosmo, 17 March - 26 May, cat. no. 24, col. repr. pp. 80-81 no. 24 (second state), referred to in the text by A. Masoero p. 22. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 679 p. 691, col. repr. |
