La libertà (H. R.), 1967-69
GPO-0161
Liberty (H. R.)
Aniline ink on photo prints mounted between shaped plexiglas sheets, nylon thread
70 x 50 cm
G. Crespi Collection
Two photographic blow-ups of the angel represented by Henri Rousseau in the painting La liberté invitant les artistes à prendre part à la 22ème exposition des artistes indépendants (1906) are coloured with aniline ink and mounted verso against verso between two plexiglas shapes. The images hang down from the ceiling on a nylon thread, so that the figure can twist freely in space, and spread its call.
Rousseau's Liberté is summoned by the artist in the role of guardian spirit of the Arts: just as in the original painting it consecrates and protects the artists on their way to the Salon des indépendants to show their works, in the context of an exhibition it validates or legitimizes the place chosen for art and its "cult".
The work is a smaller version of the first one made in 1967 (GPO-0126).
Henri Rousseau, La liberté invitant les artistes à prendre part à la 22ème exposition des artistes indépendants, 1906, oil on canvas, 175 x 118 cm, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; reproduction from L’opera completa di Rousseau il Doganiere. Classici dell’arte 29 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1978), plate XXXIII.
| 1969 | Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, Giulio Paolini. 2121969, from 21 February, repr. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. 2121969, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Galleria De Nieubourg, 1969; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 229. |
| • | Lodi all’arte 1967-1995 (Milan: Galleria Franco Toselli, 1996), repr. p. 3. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), col. repr. p. 229 (in the caption on p. 401 with dimensions referred to the first version). |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), repr. p. 124. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 161 p. 181, col. repr. |
| • | G. Zanchetti, L. P. Nicoletti, Enrico Cattaneo. Fotografare un’idea (Milano: Silvana Editoriale 2023), repr. p. 28 (exhibition view Milan 1969). |
