Contemplator enim, 1991
GPO-0683
Pencil on primed canvas, on reversed canvas and on wall, plexiglas case, white plinth
Two canvases 135 x 75 cm each, plexiglas case 40 x 40 x 40 cm, plinth 140 x 40 x 40 cm, overall dimensions variable
Fondazione Guido ed Ettore De Fornaris – GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin
Acquired in 1992, inventory no. FD 440
The pencil drawing on the wall locates two canvases – one of which visible from the recto, the other from the verso – in the perspective drawing of a room. The drawing is completed above, so as to prolong the spatial lines of the wall on which it is made, while on the two canvases the prolonging of the perspective is just hinted via the indication of the vanishing lines. Opposite the wall, in the axis of the vanishing point of the perspective and of the optical centre, is an empty plexiglas case.
The words in Latin in the title, which mean “behold thus”, are from a passage in Lucretius’ De rerum natura, in which the gaze is invited to contemplate the movements of the atoms caught in the beam created by the rays of sunlight that have filtered into a dark room.2
With the complicity of the title, the motif of the empty room indicates a space that cannot be crossed, reserved for the theatre of the images rather than for the world scene: “By no accident, the two doors that actually delimit the room are represented by two canvases, or rather by a single canvas that, viewed from the recto and the verso, presents itself as open and closed at the same time”.3 The empty stage, from which the author has declaredly withdrawn, invites the viewer to behold the silent scene that is a prelude to the manifestation of a possible and unpredictable apparition in the place assigned to the representation, characterized by the artifices and the trompe l'oeil distinctive of its dimension.
The same theme was developed in a variant from the same year (GPO-0683), as well as in a further version conceived during the same year for Christian Stein (GPO-0684). In general, the title and iconography of Contemplator enim constitute a formal and conceptual area distinctive of the early 1990s (cf. among others, the artist's publication entitled Contemplator enim, [Florence: Hopefulmonster editore, 1991).
1 The arrangement is based on the entrance hallway of the artist’s own home, in which the two doors at the back face the spaces of the living room.
2 Lucretius, De rerum natura, Book II, I. 114 ff.
3 Conversation between the artist and M. Disch, January 2005. Cf. also G. Paolini, Contemplator enim (Florence: Hopefulmonster editore, 1991).
Title from Lucretius, De rerum natura, Book II, lines 114-115 (“Contemplator enim, cum solis lumina cumque inserti fundunt radii per opaca domorum” / Behold whenever the sun’s light and the rays, let in, pour down across dark halls of houses”).
| 1991 | Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, Metafore. Gianni Kounellis e Giulio Paolini, 28 May - 31 October, not repr. |
| 2011-13 | Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Quattro nuove tematiche per le collezioni della GAM, 4 March 2011 - February 2013, volume Collezioni. Volume terzo: Allestimento 2011-2013, Turin 2012: cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 331, col. repr. pp. 226-229 (exhibition views), referred to in the text by E. Volpato p. 212; installed in the section titled "Malinconia". |
| 2013-15 | Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Nuovi percorsi delle Collezioni della GAM, 29 March 2013 - Summer 2016, volume Collezioni. Volume quarto: allestimento 2013-14, Turin 2015: cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 282, col. repr. pp. 52-53 (exhibition view), referred to in the text by D. Eccher p. 35; installed in the section titled "Infinito". |
| 2020-23 | Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Il primato dell’opera. Il nuovo allestimento della collezione del Novecento storico, 26 September 2020 - 8 October 2023, no catalogue. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2005), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 681 p. 694. |
| • | Fondazione Guido ed Ettore De Fornaris. Arte moderna a Torino II. Opere d’arte e documenti acquisiti per la Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino 1986-1992, edited by R. Maggio Serra (Turin: Fondazione Guido ed Ettore De Fornaris and Umberto Allemandi & C., 1993), p. 73, commentary by R. Passoni pp. 366-367, repr. p. 369 (exhibition view Rome 1991), col. repr. n. pag. |
| • | Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Torino. Il Novecento. Catalogo delle opere esposte, edited by R. Maggio Serra and R. Passoni (Turin-Milan: Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and Fabbri Editori, 1993), entry by R. Passoni p. 608, col. repr. p. 585. |
| • | ”Viaggio in Italia, 1998-2000: Milano”. Da Boccioni a…, exhibition catalogue, Mantua, Casa del Mantegna (Mantua: Corraini Editore, 1998), repr. no. 11 (installation view at Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), col. repr. p. 53. |
| • | Arte povera in collezione (Rivoli-Milan: Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Edizioni Charta, 2000), catalogue entry by M. Disch p. 220, col. repr. p. 221. |
| • | Lucrezio, De rerum natura (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2003), col. repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 683 p. 697, col. repr. (installation view at Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin). |
| • | R. Ferrario, Giulio Paolini. Un viaggio a distanza (Busto Arsizio: Nomos Edizioni, 2009), col. repr. p. 100. |
| • | Trent'anni d'arte 1982-2012, edited by M. Paglieri (Savigliano: Fondazione De Fornaris, L'Artistica Editrice, 2012), p. 24, col. repr. pp. 110-111 (installation view at Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin), cited in the list of the acquired works p. 212. |
| • | Collezioni. Volume terzo: Allestimento 2011-2013, edited by D. Eccher (Turin: GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and Umberto Allemandi & C., 2012), p. 212 (referred to in the text by E. Volpato), col. repr. pp. 226-229 (exhibition view Turin 2011). |
| • | E. Volpato, “L’Ile enchantée. La visione è cieca”, in E. Franz et al., Giulio Paolini. Vedo e non vedo. In tema 1 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2014), p. 60, col. repr. p. 61. |
| • | Collezioni. Volume quarto: Allestimento 2013-2014, edited by D. Eccher (Turin: GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and Umberto Allemandi & C., 2015), p. 35 (referred to in the text by D. Eccher), col. repr. pp. 52-53 (installation view at Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin, 2013-14). |
| • | Ragione e furore. Lucrezio nell’Italia contemporanea, edited by F. Citti and D. Pellacani (Bologna: Edizioni Pendragon, 2020), pp. LIV-LV, 15-17, col. repr. no. 74. |
