Idem (regesto delle opere come motivo a punti multicolori), 1972
GPO-0244
Idem (Register of Works as Multicoloured Dots Motif)
Tempera on primed canvas
Fourty-nine parts 20 x 30 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Private collection
The installation of the work calls for the arrangement of 49 elements in a grid, with regular intervals between each one, on several adjacent walls or on a single wall so that it forms a large quadrilateral of 7 x 7 units. Should the amount of space available be limited, some of the elements can be omitted. Alternatively, the elements can be arranged so that they resemble one continuous frieze, on several walls, at the viewer's eye level or on the upper part of the wall (akin to the first exhibition of the work in Turin in 1973).
In each case the installation calls for the proximity of the canvases on at least one side, so that the dotted lines end up optically generating rectangles between one canvas and another.
Forty-nine primed canvases each of which featuring, in the area corresponding to the median perimeter points, four semi-rectangles, determined by a tempera-painted multicolored dotted line. Overall, the semi-rectangles of a canvas correspond to those in the adjacent canvases, forming a multitude of what are presumed to be "paintings". The canvases appear to be “annulled” in their real presence, in favour of the countless and precarious images that take shape between them.
Idem is the first in a cycle of seven works made between 1972 and 1978, all of which had in common the idea of a "register" of "works" formulated each time in the form of a different "motif" (GPO-0244, GPO-0245, GPO-0261, GPO-0265, GPO-0296, GPO-0335, GPO-0400). “The cycle of works entitled Idem is born as the hypothetical register of all the works in existence, that have existed or that may exist: abstract and virtual, it allows me to proceed in time and in the history of art by listing without naming them the images that make it up”.1 “Idem does not identify which works, but, rather, indicates those works constituting a whole that in some way pre-exists any further analysis or identification".2
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245 p. 254.
2 G. Paolini interviewed by C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288.
| 1973 | Turin, Galleria Notizie, Giulio Paolini. Idem, from 26 January. |
| 2004 | Bern, Ambasciata d’Italia, Tra forma e spazio: un cammino nell’arte dell’Italia moderna, 2 June - 2 July, col. repr. p. 50. |
| 2005 | Berlin, Galerie Davide Di Maggio, Italiana: über Künstler der Arte Povera, 30 September - 26 December. |
| • | G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 82, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 108; general commentary on the first four versions of Idem (GPO-0244, GPO-0245, GPO-0261, GPO-0265); first published in G. Paolini, Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Bolzano, Galleria Il Sole, 1974, n. pag. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with A. Mammì, in L’espresso (Rome), 30 October 2003, p. 146. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245, p. 254. |
| • | T. Trini, “Giulio Paolini, un decennio. Parte seconda”, in Data 3, no. 9 (Milan), Autumn, 1973, repr. p. 40 (exhibition view Turin 1973, erroneously dated “1973”). |
| • | G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), repr. p. 83 (exhibition view Turin 1973); new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), repr. p. 109 (exhibition view Turin 1973). |
| • | Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), repr. no. 162 (exhibition view Turin 1973). |
| • | Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), repr. p. 413 (exhibition view Turin 1973). |
| • | S. Isler, Del bello intelligibile. Semiotische Analyse zu sechs Werken von Giulio Paolini, PhD dissertation (Zurich: Philosophische Fakultät I der Universität Zürich, 1983), pp. 221-224, 228-241 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, “L’atto espositivo. Appunti sul lavoro di Giulio Paolini”, in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), pp. 117, 121 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr. |
| • | M. Bandini, M.C. Mundici, M.T. Roberto, Luciano Pistoi: “inseguo un mio disegno” (Turin: Hopefulmonster editore, 2008), repr. pp. 206-207 (exhibition view Turin 1973 and overview of the 49 elements making up the work). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 244 pp. 252-253, col. repr. |
| • | R. Ferrario, Giulio Paolini. Un viaggio a distanza (Busto Arsizio: Nomos Edizioni, 2009), p. 83, repr. p. 81 (overview of the 49 elements). |
| • | D. Lancioni, “Può un’eccellente opera d’arte contemporanea essere ornamentale o decorativa?”, in Predella. Journal of Visual Arts 37, October, 2016, pp. 184-185, col. repr. no. 4. |
