Platea, 1978

The six framed elements are each constituted by a white folder. On the left side of the folder the artist has written a name with the initial in red, while applied to the right side is a collage with a male or female figure. The six names identify the six subjects with the protagonists who in the final part of Homer's Odyssey were called to recognize Ulysses upon his return to Ithaca: Penelope, Laertes, Anticlea, Telemachus, Eumaeus, and Antinous. When read in a sequence the initials form the word “platea” (audience), referred to in the title. Each character is connoted by a distinctive attribute: Penelope is represented by the photograph of a woman surrounded by tapestries, who holds before her, as if it were a book, the black and white image of a woman standing at the threshold to a door. The elderly Laertes is recalled via the image of the face of a clock, which overlaps the various sheets that a hand drawn in pencil tries to hold down. Anticlea, Ulysses' mother, is represented by an image of Carla Tatò in this same role in the theatrical project entitled Platea, conceived by Carlo Quartucci and Giulio Paolini. Telemachus, Ulysses' son, is evoked by two travel images, respectively, the seat on a train and a young man on a boat in the middle of the sea. Eumaeus, Ulysses' servant, is represented by the image of a photographic set that has a tear in the middle through which one can glimpse a marine view. Lastly, Antinous is represented by two male models, one photographic and the other drawn, borrowed from a fashion magazine.
In the first display of the work in Naples in 1978, Paolini installed the six elements on an equal number of chairs arranged close together, and turned towards the viewers as if this were the seating area in a theatre. Indeed, the key to interpretation lies in the term “platea”, which designates the area located before the stage in a theatre, the area that is reserved for the public. The six figures recalled in the collages arranged on the chairs that are turned towards the viewer suggest an audience as it awaits the performance – similarly to the previous versions of Platea (GPO-0298, GPO-0348) – while the viewer himself is "on the scene", invited to wear the clothing of Ulysses, the true protagonist of Homer's epic poem as well as of Paolini's work.