Copia dal vero, 1975

Four rectangular primed canvases, placed at short intervals from each other, portray a reduced version of their own outlines.
In the artist's own words: “What the drawing inside each of the three canvases tends to copy, to refer, is none other than the surface on which it is about to be delineated. A transcription, therefore, far-removed from the suspicion of the interpretation: a reading of the space, before being a drawing, that does not presume to transcend the truth to which it is applied, that is, the original space of the painting. The pencil drawing, and the canvas itself, each preserve their own differences in dimensions and quality, in the sense that the lines develop within the canvas in a reduced proportion and naturally have a conventional and visual nature that is drawn. But what also exists, between the two dimensions, is an affinity that is apparent from the moment that the one and the other do not aim for reciprocal imitation”.1
The same theme was formulated in five other variants made during the same year (GPO-0303, GPO-0306, GPO-0307, GPO-0316, GPO-0321).

1 G. Paolini, Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne : Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 50.