Pendant, 1980
GPO-0841
Pencil and collage on primed canvas and on reversed canvas
40 x 80 cm (two parts 40 x 40 cm each)
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the second canvas: "Giulio Paolini / Pendant / 1980"
Private collection
Two primed canvases placed close together, the former viewed from the recto, the latter from the verso, feature the image of a female figure, associated with the drawing of two squares that in an inverted position evoke the same two canvases. The torn fragments scattered about on both canvases reiterate some of the details of the same ancient image.
The work harkens back to the theme conceived the previous year in a site-specific piece (cf. GPO-0409, GPO-0430): the specular doubling that in that case involved two opposite walls, is carried out here between the four canvases at play: the real ones and the drawn ones, opposite one another.
Figure from Davide Bertolotti, L’Italia descritta e dipinta con le sue isole di Sicilia, Sardinia, Elba, Malta, Eolie, di Calipso, ecc. 2 (Turin: Giuseppe Pomba e C., 1837-38), plate 14 (“Pitture antiche. Pompei. Peintures Antiques”).
