Il giudizio di Paride, 1978
GPO-0383
Judgement of Paris
Collage and red pencil inscription on primed canvas
Three parts 120 x 180 cm each, overall dimensions 120 x 560 cm
Private collection
The distance ideally imagined by the artist between the three canvases should be enough to form a distance equal to that between the two small canvases. In actual fact, the canvases would practically touch each other. The gap must be minimal, but still significant.
Three canvases placed close together at short intervals from each other each feature an incomplete sequence of smaller canvases, where the one corresponding to the larger canvas is always missing. Hence, from one canvas to another two groups of three small adjacent units are created. On the small canvases, a collage of fragments of a reproduction of Giunone (ca. 1823-32) by Lorenzo Bartolini evokes a fragmentary image, accentuated by the fragments scattered all around, torn from the same source. On all of the canvases, writing in red pencil at the bottom left identifies a hypothetical subject with the name of one of the three goddesses presented to Paris so that he could judge which of them was the most beautiful: Juno, Minerva, and Venus (the succession of the three names varies from one sequence of canvases to another based on a criterion of permutation).
Lorenzo Bartolini, Giunone, 1823-32, plaster, 85 x 52 x 34 cm, Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence.
| 1978 | Turin, Galleria Christian Stein, Giulio Paolini. Il giudizio di Paride, from 8 May. |
| 1979-80 | Genazzano, Castello Colonna, Le Stanze, 30 November 1979 - 29 February 1980, not repr. |
| 1984 | Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Der Traum des Orpheus. Mythologie in der italienischen Gegenwartskunst 1967 bis 1984, 16 May - 1 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 176, not repr.; installation with collage on wall. |
| 1988 | Seoul, The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Italiana. Aspects of Avantgarde Art in Italy 1960 1986, 8-26 March, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 13 p. 53, repr. p. 34. |
| 1991 | Budapest, Galleria Mücsarnok, Intersezioni: Arte italiana negli anni ’70-’80, 28 March - 28 April, repr. p. 101. |
| 1992-93 | Villeurbanne, Le Nouveau Musée, La collection Christian Stein. Un regard sur l’art italien, 24 June - 31 October, touring to: Toulouse, CRAC Centre Régional d’Art Contemporain Midi-Pyrénées, Labège-Innopole, 19 January - 28 March 1993, cited in the checklist of exhibited works and repr. pp. 186-187 (the three elements are installed in the wrong order), catalogue entry p. 293. |
| 2002 | Palma de Mallorca, Centre de Cultura “Sa Nostra”, Boetti, Fabro, Kounellis, Merz, Paolini, Pistoletto, Zorio. De l’Art Povera als nostres dies, 26 February - 20 April, cat. no. 15, col. repr. n. pag. |
| 2007 | Milan, Galleria Christian Stein, opening exhibition of the new venue, from 30 May. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Werke und Schriften 1960-1980 (Lucerne: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1981), repr. n. pag. |
| • | F. Poli, “Giulio Paolini”, in Contemporanea 2 (Turin, Italian edition), Summer, 1988, col. repr. p. 94 (exhibition view Genazzano 1979); international edition: 2 (New York), July-August, 1988, col. repr. p. 94. |
| • | La collection Christian Stein. Un regard sur l’art italien (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée and Art Édition, 1992), repr. pp. 186-187 (the three elements are installed in the wrong order), catalogue entry p. 293. |
| • | G. Paolini, La verità in quattro righe e novantacinque voci, edited by S. Risaliti (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1996), repr. as a faded background image to the entry for “Giudizio”, p. 89. |
| • | R. Krüger, Nach der Antike. Studien zur Antikenrezeption in der bildenden Kunst seit 1967 (Essen: Klartext, 2004), p. 60, not repr. |
| • | G. Di Genova, Storia dell’Arte Italiana del ‘900 per generazioni. Generazione Anni Quaranta, vol. 6.1 (Bologna: Edizioni Bora, 2007), pp. 12-13, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 383 p. 389 (with incomplete technique), repr. |
| • | Collezione Christian Stein. Una storia dell'arte italiana / A History of Italian Art (Valencia-Lugano-Milan: IVAM Institut Valencià d'Art Modern, Museo Cantonale d'Arte and Mondadori Electa, 2010), p. 82, not repr. |
| • | B. Cinelli, “Il grande gioco dell’arte”, in Teatro di Mnemosine. Giulio Paolini d’après Watteau, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Spazio -1 Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati (Bellinzona: Edizioni Casagrande, 2015), p. 69, not repr. |
