Monogramma, 1965
GPO-0084
Monogram
Primed canvas mounted on wooden silhouette
172 x 58 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso, top: "Giulio Paolini / Monogramma / 1965"
Private collection
In the exhibition venue, for the sake of safety and protection, the artist suggests placing the work on a wide transparent plexiglas sheet (ca. 100 x 100, 1 cm thick).
A wooden shape covered in primed canvas and placed on the ground, propped up against a wall is a life-size reproduction of a painter at work.
The white canvas stretched across the shape of the artist rather than the stretcher of a painting suggests "an exchange of roles, a hypothetical or presumed identification between the two essential 'interlocutors' of a work: the artist assumes the shape of a painting and vice versa",1 according to the artist, in retrospect. The one like the other present themselves via a symbolic reduction to their "initials" (as the title, "Monogram", suggests): the painting via the bank canvas mounted on a stretcher, the painter with his paintbrush in hand.
Painting and author are complementary, in this case they even coincide: the author needs the painting to legitimize his own identity, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that the one is realized by way of the other: the canvas, in fact, remains immaculate. The relationship of reciprocal identification is a conceptual proposition; the author is an anonymous silhouette who represents painters of all times, and the blank canvas stands for all the paintings possible.
Whereas in the early 1960s Paolini examined the instruments that are used to paint (brushes, tins of paint, ruling pens) and the elements that make up a painting (stretcher, canvas, recto and verso), in 1965, his research also included the figure of the author, captured in a characteristic working gesture (painting, shifting, or transporting a canvas).
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2003), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 84 p. 114.
| 1965 | Turin, Galleria Notizie, Giulio Paolini, from 11 November, cited in the checklist of exhibited works, repr. |
| 1966 | Milan, Centro Culturale San Fedele, Premio San Fedele 1966 per giovani pittori, 10 - 29 October, cited in the checklist of exhibited works, not repr. |
| 1973 | Milan, Studio Marconi, Paolini: opere 1961/73, from 15 November, not repr. |
| 1988-89 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Giulio Paolini, 24 November 1988 - 26 February 1989, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 95, repr. no. 11. |
| 1994-95 | New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Italian Metamorphosis, 1943-1968, 7 October 1994 - 22 January 1995, touring to: Wolfsburg, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, 22 April - 13 August 1995, repr. no. 184. |
| 2003 | Milan, Fondazione Prada, Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, 29 October - 18 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 400, repr. pp. 138, 139 (repr. with incorrect installation). |
| 2014 | London, Whitechapel Gallery, Giulio Paolini. To Be or Not to Be, 9 July - 14 September, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 155, col. repr. p. 101 (exhibition view Milan 2003), catalogue entry by M. Disch p. 100, referred to in the text by I. Bernardi p. 91. |
| 2018-19 | Milan, Fondazione Carriero, Giulio Paolini. Del bello ideale, 26 October 2018 - 10 February 2019, col. repr. vol. 1 pp. 128-129, 130-131 (exhibition views), 156, b/n repr. vol. 2 p. 5 (the artist in his studio looking at Monogramma). |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with M. Pistoi, “Giulio Paolini”, in Marcatrè 19-22 (Milan), April, 1966, p. 385; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 145. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2003), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 84 p. 114. |
| • | G. Celant, “Crónica de Italia. Giulio Paolini y Piero Dorazio”, in Forma nueva el inmueble 14 (Madrid), March, p. 64, repr. p. 63; republished as “Prima della ‘pittura’, Giulio Paolini”, in Marcatrè 30-33 (Milan), July, 1967, p. 269, not repr., and later in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by Id. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 208. |
| • | Conceptual Art, Arte Povera, Land Art, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, 1970, repr. p. 97 (caption p. 203, erroneously dated “1967”). |
| • | Catalogo Bolaffi d’arte moderna, vol. 2: Segnalati Bolaffi 1970 (Turin: Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 1970), repr. p. 114. |
| • | G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), p. 42, repr. no. 38 p. 45; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, op. cit. (Milan: 2003), p. 136; reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | G. Celant, “Image of the Image”, in Art and Artists 9, no. 98 (London), May, 1974, p. 14, repr. p. 15; republished in Id., Senza titolo 1974 (Rome: Bulzoni, 1976), p. 260, not repr. |
| • | M. Fagiolo, “Glossario”, in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), p. 20, repr. no. 61. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Premio Bolaffi 1980 (Turin: Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 1980), repr. p. 6. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Werke und Schriften 1960-1980 (Lucerne: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1981), repr. n. pag. |
| • | F. Poli, in Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi, 1984, n. pag., not repr.; republished as “L’io dell’artista, l’io della pittura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), p. 14. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 19. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 128. |
| • | F. Poli, Giulio Paolini, op. cit. (Turin: 1990), col. repr. no. 65. |
| • | A. Zevi, “Three Artistic Generations in Contemporary Italy” in Three Artistic Generations in Contemporary Italy, exhibition catalogue, Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion for Contemporary Art, 1993, p. 87, repr. p. 26. |
| • | Italiana. From Arte Povera to Transavanguardia, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama, Nicaf 3 (Milan: Fondazione Mudima Edizioni, 1994), repr. p. 8 (exhibition view Rome 1988-89). |
| • | M. Fagiolo Dell’Arco, “Giulio Paolini, ‘Villa Medici 1331996’”, in Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, exhibition catalogue, Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996), p. 31, not repr. |
| • | O. Westheider, “Giulio Paolini”, in Konzeptkunst in der Hamburger Kunsthalle. Die Sammlung Elisabeth und Gerhard Sohst (Hamburg: Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1997), p. 16, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), repr. pp. 21, 205. |
| • | C. Christov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 1999), col. repr. p. 139 (exhibition view Rome 1988-89). |
| • | M. Dalla Bernardina, “Les autoportraits de Giulio Paolini”, in Ligeia 29-32 (Paris), October 1999 - June 2000, p. 6, not repr. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), pp. 288-289, not repr. |
| • | G. Di Genova, Storia dell’Arte Italiana del ‘900 per generazioni. Generazione Anni Quaranta, vol. 6.1 (Bologna: Edizioni Bora, 2007), p. 12, repr. no. 2. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 84 p. 114, col. repr. |
| • | R. Zucconi, “Arte e design da collezione”, in Elle Decor Italia (Milan), November, 2010, repr. p. 223 (installation view at the home of a private collector). |
| • | G. Celant, Arte Povera. Storia e storie (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2011), p. 55; text taken from Id., Giulio Paolini, op. cit. (New York: 1972), col. repr. (exhibition view Milan 2003). |
| • | T. Migliore, “Ritratti ‘portratti’. Giulio Paolini e l’identikit dell’artista”, in L’immagine che siamo. Ritratto e soggettività nell’estetica contemporanea, edited by M.G. Di Monte, M. Di Monte and H. de Riedmatten (Rome: Carocci editore, 2014), pp. 126-127, not repr. |
| • | “Hypothesis for an Exhibition”, exhibition catalogue, New York, Dominique Lévy Gallery, 2014, col. repr. p. 96 (exhibition view Milan 2003). |
| • | L. Vecere, In assenza. Appunti sull’autoritratto contemporaneo (Pisa: University Press, 2017), p. 72, repr. |
| • | Paolini. I Grandi illustrati del Corriere della Sera. Arte contemporanea – I protagonisti 8, edited by F. Gualdoni (Milan: RCS MediaGroup S.p.a., 2022), repr. p. 12 (the artist in his studio looking at Monogramma). |
| • | P. Repetto, “Oltre il visibile”, in Giulio Paolini. O.D.E., exhibition catalogue, Monforte d’Alba (Cuneo), Castello di Perno (Alba: Fondazione Mancini Carini, 2022), p. 36, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. pp. 206-207 (exhibition view Rome 1988), col. repr. pp. 236 (exhibition view Milan 2003), 269 (exhibition view London 2014), 285 (exhibition view Milan 2018). |
