Autoritratto col busto di Eraclito e altre opere, 1971-72
GPO-0234
Self-Portrait with the Bust of Heraclitus and Other Works
Tempera, pencil and coloured pencils on unprimed canvas
200 x 300 cm
Private collection
The self-portrait in pencil on an unprimed canvas stands out against the vanishing point of a series of rectangles made with lines of different colours, inscribed in a bright halo painted freehand. The bust of Heraclitus mentioned in the title is a reference to a work from 1963 (not better identified until now, cf. GPO-0031), which the artist imagines to be among the works drawn behind him.
The male figure in ceremonial dress – appearing here for the first time, while after 1979 he will often appear in a stylized and anonymous form – introduces a characteristic stand-in and one that is particularly significant in Paolini's poetics. This elegant, detached, and composed figure, intent on buttoning his wrist cuff, plays the role of the master of ceremonies who is announcing something prodigious. The Paolinian author does not offer up to the gaze a finished work, nor does he leave any trace of himself in his own paintings: he limits himself to announcing the space of the representation, the place designated to host marvellous artifices.
Figure from Antonio Sandre, Il costume nei tempi (Turin: Scuola Taglio Moderno, 1961), p. 268, fig. 299 (”Da ‘Minister’s Gazette of fashions’, 1925-30”), with replacement of the original face with that of Giulio Paolini and with the transformation of the original jacket into a tailcoat.
| 1972 | New York, Sonnabend Gallery, Giulio Paolini, 25 November - 16 December. |
| 1974 | New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Projects: Giulio Paolini, 21 March - 14 April, no catalogue. |
| 1978 | Naples, Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes, Giulio Paolini, from 9 February, no catalogue. |
| 2002 | Siena, Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, De Gustibus. Collezione privata Italia, 3 March - 12 May, repr. p. 40 (installation view at Di Bennardo Collection, Naples), col. repr. p. 178. |
| 2014-15 | Naples, MADRE Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Lucio Amelio. Dalla Modern Art Agency alla genesi di “Terrae Motus” (1965-1982). Documenti, opere, una storia…, 22 November 2014 - 6 April 2015, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 17, col. repr. p. 121 (exhibition view). |
| 2017 | New York, Lévy Gorvy, Ileana Sonnabend and Arte Povera, 2 November - 23 December, in the volume by G. Celant col. repr. p. 204, in the exhibition volume cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 64, col. repr. pp. 16-17 (exhibition view), 20. |
| • | G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 100-112, in particular pp. 108-109, repr. no. 94 p. 106; chapter published as “Item perspectiva. Opere recenti di Giulio Paolini”, in Domus 516 (Milan), November, 1972, pp. 45-48, repr. p. 46; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by Id. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), pp. 348, 356, 374, 376, 382, in particular p. 376; reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | M. Volpi Orlandini, “L’artista dell’avanguardia che piace allo storico dell’arte”, in Bolaffiarte 4, no. 31 (Turin), June-July, 1973, p. 85, repr. p. 87; republished in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), p. 85. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, op. cit. (Parma: 1976), repr. no. 147. |
| • | Paolo Mussat Sartor Fotografo 1968-1978. Arte e artisti in Italia (Turin: Stampatori Editore, 1979), repr. p. 167 (exhibition view Naples 1978). |
| • | Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), repr. p. 404. |
| • | Avanguardia Transavanguardia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Mura Aureliane da Porta Metronia a Porta Latina (Milan: Electa, 1982), repr. no. 144 p. 91 (exhibition view Naples 1978). |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 132. |
| • | 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. 16. |
| • | J.L. Maubant, “Giulio Paolini ou le triomphe de la mélancolie”, in Paolini. Melanconia ermetica, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Galerie Maeght Lelong, 1985, p. 6, repr. |
| • | “Arte Povera sul golfo di Napoli”, in Vogue Italia 429 (Milan), December, 1985, col. repr. pp. 294, 295 (installation view at Di Bennardo Collection, Naples). |
| • | F. Poli, Giulio Paolini, op. cit. (Turin: 1990), repr. no. 80. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, op. cit. (Milan: 2003), repr. p. 375. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), pp. 363, 365, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 234 p. 242, col. repr. |
| • | 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), p. 131, not repr. |
| • | I. Bernardi, “Il giuoco delle parti”, in Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Rome, MACRO Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma and London, Whitechapel Gallery (Rome: Quodlibet Edizioni, 2014), p. 92, repr. p. 86. |
| • | L. Vecere, In assenza. Appunti sull’autoritratto contemporaneo (Pisa: University Press, 2017), pp. 82-83, repr. p. 82. |
| • | G. Celant, Ileana Sonnabend and Arte Povera (New York: Lévy Gorvy, 2017), col. repr. p. 204. |
| • | S. Menichini, “’La caduta di Icaro’ di Giulio Paolini (1981). Uno studio iconografico”, in L’uomo nero. Materiali per una storia delle arti della modernità 17, n.s., no. 17-18, February (Milan - Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021), p. 171, repr. p. 170. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 133 (exhibition view New York 1972). |
| • | V. Fumagalli, Sguardo e memoria. Le corrispondenze tra Giulio Paolini e “Le Cygne” di Charles Baudelaire (Rome: Fondazione Mario Luzi Editore, 2023), col. repr. on cover, repr. p. 153. |
