Senza titolo, 1964
GPO-0067
Untitled
Perforated plywood panel, white card stock
190 x 160 cm
Signed and dated on the verso on a white card: “Giulio Paolini” (upper left), “1964” (lower left)
Private collection, Turin
Protruding from the two vertical slits made at the centre of a plywood panel hanging on a wall are the folded edges of a white card inserted from the back. On the card is a photographic reproduction of a car tyre. Hence, the image that would conventionally appear on the recto is hidden on the verso.
From this point of view, the work is the continuation of a group of works made in 1963 (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. The subtraction of the painting from its function as a vehicle for the image and its query at the moment of its perception instead harks back to the series of works made during the same year (from GPO-0052 to GPO-0063, GPO-0068) characterized by simple plywood panels that when placed on the ground or hung from the wall, in the artist's words, “‘replace’ the presence of pictures on the walls and analyze the purely conventional rapports of an exhibition” (1973).1
1 G. Paolini, "Note di lavoro", in NAC 3 (Milan), March, 1973, p. 10.
| 1964 | Rome, Galleria La Salita, Giulio Paolini, from 31 October. |
| 1989 | Radda in Chianti, Castello di Volpaia, Arca, 9-24 September, col. repr. p. 127. |
| 2019 | Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Mostre in mostra. Roma contemporanea dagli anni Cinquanta ai Duemila/1, 30 May - 28 July, no catalogue. |
| 2024-25 | Paris, Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Arte Povera, 9 October 2024 - 20 January 2025, col. repr. no. 4 p. 245, catalogue entry by S.M.S. Cammarata p. 244. |
| • | G. Paolini, “Note di lavoro”, in NAC 3 (Milan), March, 1973, p. 10; republished in Id., Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 42, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 68. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), col. repr. p. 111 (recto). |
| • | V. Pero, “Ein Gespräch mit Corrado Levi”, in Che fare? Arte povera – Die historischen Jahre, exhibition catalogue, Vaduz, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, 2010), p. 347, not repr. (idem in the English edition). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 67 p. 98, col. repr. (recto). |
