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Quattro per uno, 1994

GPO-0745

Four for One

Pencil on primed canvas, on reversed canvas and on wall

Two primed canvases 35 x 45 cm, 40 x 50 cm, reversed canvas 80 x 110 cm, drawing on wall 160 x 240 cm, overall dimensions 190 x 240 cm

Private collection, Rome

Three canvases of different sizes, mounted in a tilted position and turned in the opposite direction – the larger one is upside down, the smaller ones are visible from the recto – are matched with a rectangle drawn on the wall so that it circumscribes the whole (in the points of contact the drawing continues onto the canvases).
The staggered elements, as they await an ideal correspondence, are a prelude to the definition of a potential painting (hence, the title, which refers to the four elements called into play in the attempt to identify one painting).
The same theme was developed in three other variants, made during the same year (GPO-0740, GPO-0741) and in 1998 (GPO-0822), which time after time involve a different number of elements.

1994 Florence, Galleria Schema, Dono, September.
2011 Torre Pellice, Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, Collettiva, from 9 October.
M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 745 p. 758, col. repr.
Distracting Surface, exhibition catalogue, Bregenz, Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis, 2013, col. repr. p. 16.
Entry by Maddalena Disch, 30/04/2026