Picnic, 1963

A sheet of white paper stretched across a masonite panel is trimmed along the right and left sides, except in the corners, so that the support is visible. Some white cementite poured onto it from the top partially covers it, allowing the paper background to show through. On the verso is the colour reproduction of an advert for “Picnic” chocolate.
In the artist's words: “The image of the painting consists of the very elements that comprise it: I start out from a certain rigid surface and I cover it with another material that is suited to receiving some visible graphic marks, and this material does not erase the support on which it is laid but, rather, is deliberately shaped in order to discover a detail of it, and little by little also the addition of subsequent elements respects the presence of others previously manipulated. […] The image wished for over these materials is none other than the correct presentation of the materials themselves" (1973).1
This work is part of a group of works (from GPO-0028 to GPO-0049) whose common denominator is the presence of an intervention on both the recto and the verso of the painting. Surfaces of various types take turns appearing on the recto (painted paper, graph paper, photographic reproductions, shaped wooden panels), while on the verso (hidden from view) we find the details of images and printed words taken from magazines or from books. The title, when specified (such as in the case of Picnic), refers to a textual element present on the verso. The artist explains that: “Just as on the surface various elements alternate amongst themselves, but always remain ‘blind’, in the sense that they tend not to supply an image, but are there for their own sake, occupying that given space, so the title itself is absolutely autonomous with respect to the surface [...], constituted by a fragment of words and, at times, images, following the signature and the date, on a white paper square on the back of the picture” (1972).2 The subtraction of the painting from its function as a vehicle for an image is a continuation of the study experimented with in some previous works that focus on a subject that, albeit mentioned, remains an unexpressed presence: the title refers to something that isn't visible (in that it is applied to the verso), while the recto presents a mute image or in any case one that is free from any rational relationship with the title.

1 G. Paolini interviewed by A. Bonito Oliva, in Paolini: opere 1961/1973, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi, 1973, n. pag.; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste, 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 152.
2 G. Paolini in G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), p. 34 (revised translation, republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant [Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003], p. 122), reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019), p. 34. Cf. also the artist's remarks in C. Lonzi, Autoritratto (Bari: De Donato Editore, 1969), p. 367, reprint (Milan: Et al./Edizioni, 2010), p. 280, English edition (Brussels-London: Divided Publishing, 2021), p. 320.