Lo sguardo della Medusa, 1981
GPO-0463
Medusa’s Gaze
Pencil and red pencil on paper, fractured plaster cast, pages from an art magazine
Six sheets 70 x 100 cm each (three torn and three whole), overall dimensions variable
Collection of the artist
• 1981, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna: the explosion was amplified by a series of white sheets scattered on the ground all around, and by a drawing of some of the rectangles on the walls that contained the torn fragments of sheets of drawing paper (pinned with drawing pins).
Six pieces of drawing paper, some of which torn, are installed on the floor so that they are inscribed in the visual angle of a gaze whose vertex is the eye in the fractured plaster cast of the Medici Venus. The same motif is doubled in the double-page spread of the art magazine placed beside the cast (the upper left corner touches the eye socket), representing the fragments of an image inserted in the visual beams of an eye.1 Other fragments taken from the same magazine are scattered atop sheets of drawing paper, each time establishing the origin of the straight lines traced in black pencil and red pencil on the sheets, thereby simulating the extension of the visual beams of the image.
The gaze which is elevated to being the subject itself of the work is the main theme of Paolini's production in 1981. Akin to other works made during the same period, the gaze at play is that of the viewer, who in spite of their expectations cannot seem to capture any object that is in itself. While in other cases the gaze finds itself looking at its own trajectory, here (like in Hortus clausus, GPO-0442) the ensemble of visual data is fragmented and interrupted, as if it had been petrified by the gaze of the Medusa; according to the well-known Greek myth, this figure had the power to petrify any subject that met her gaze. Metaphorically speaking, the Medusa's gaze alludes to the impossibility – for both the author and the viewer – of fixing or touching the absolute dimension of the work of art.
1 The art magazine A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu is open to the last of the four double-page spreads of the artist's project entitled Idea del tempio della pittura, created for issue no. 3 ([Rome], March, 1981, pp. 3-12) and reproduced in 1983 in the form of a print edition (GPE-0044).
Cleomenes son of Apollodorus, Medici Venus, late 1st century BC, marble, h 153 cm, Le Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence.
| 1981-82 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Giulio Paolini. Lo sguardo della Medusa, 20 December 1981 - 24 January 1982, repr. n. pag. (exhibition views), short text by I. Panicelli n. pag. |
| 1983 | Geneva, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Interni colori (A.E.I.U.O.), from 10 December, no catalogue. |
| 1984 | Villeurbanne, Le Nouveau Musée, Giulio Paolini, 20 January - 18 March, vol. Images/Index repr. pp. 122-123 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist’s studio). |
| 1989 | Ghent, Museum Van Hedendaagse Kunst, Open Mind. Gesloten Circuits / Circuiti chiusi. Hommage aan Vincent, 15 April - 25 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 304, repr. p. 147 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist’s studio). |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Lo sguardo della Medusa, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome: De Luca Editore, 1981), n. pag.; republished in Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 123. |
| • | H. Friedel, “Giulio Paolini. Der doppelte Blick”, in Der Traum des Orpheus. Mythologie in der italienischen Gegenwartskunst 1967 bis 1984, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1984, p. 73, repr. (exhibition view Rome 1981, detail). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. La Casa di Lucrezio, exhibition catalogue, Spoleto, Palazzo Rosari Spada (Casalecchio di Reno: Grafis Edizioni, 1984), repr. p. 24 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist’s studio). |
| • | G. Paolini, “Trionfo della rappresentazione”, in Furor 12 (Geneva), October, 1984, repr. no. 9 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio). |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 208 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio). |
| • | H. Friedel, “Imago Memoriae”, in Mythos Italien. Wintermärchen Deutschland, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Haus der Kunst (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1988), p. 96, not repr. |
| • | F. Poli, “Note di lettura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), p. 30, not repr.; republished in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), p. 49. |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’oeuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by Id. (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 123, repr. no. 38 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, op. cit. (Ostfildern-Ruit: 1998), repr. p. 261 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio). |
| • | M. Unterdörfer, Die Rezeption der Antike in der Postmoderne: der Gipsabguss in der italienischen Kunst der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Weimar: VDG Verlag und Datenbank ful1r Geisteswissenschaften, 1998), pp. 36, 68, 143, 173, cat. no. 41 p. 143, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Premio Internazionale Koinè 2000 alla carriera, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Palazzo Forti (Milan: Electa, 2001), repr. p. 36. |
| • | R. Krüger, Nach der Antike. Studien zur Antikenrezeption in der bildenden Kunst seit 1967 (Essen: Klartext, 2004), pp. 221-227 (with incorrect description of the illustrated preliminary installation, misunderstood to be a small-scale wall work), repr. no. 69 p. 189 (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio). |
| • | L. Conte, “Date e luoghi del grand tour: Giulio Paolini a Roma”, in Risonanze #2. Giulio Paolini & Fabio Vacchi, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Spazio Risonanze, Auditorium Parco della Musica (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2008), p. 162, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 463 pp. 474-475, repr. (detail of the preliminary installation in the artist's studio and exhibition view Rome 1981). |
| • | J. Lageira, “Giulio Paolini. Ut pictura poesis”, in Id., Regard oblique. Essais sur la perception (Brussels: La Lettre volée, 2013), pp. 107, 110, repr. pp 108 (preliminary installation in the artist's studio), 109 (exhibition view Ghent 1989). |
| • | Joint is Out of Time, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Galleria Nazionale (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019), repr. p. 144 (exhibition view Rome 1981). |
| • | 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. 39, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. pp. 171, 172 (exhibition views Rome 1981), 172-173 (Paolini during the installation of the work, Rome 1981). |
