Itaca, 1979
GPO-0410
Ithaca
Pencil and collage on primed canvas
Nine parts 40 x 60 cm each, overall dimensions 125 x 185 cm
The Olnick Spanu Collection, New York
The nine canvases must be installed to form a rectangle of 3 x 3 units, with equidistant intervals measuring 2.5 cm between the canvases.
Nine primed canvases placed close together each feature an undecipherable photographic collage, made up of an increasing number of torn fragments, obtained by the gradual juxtaposition of the negatives of views of solo shows (the reading develops according to a circular itinerary in a clockwise direction, starting from the first canvas at the upper left). From one element to another, moreover, the photographic collage gradually hides a square drawn in pencil at the centre of each canvas. The central canvas instead repeats via a pencil drawing the image of the work itself, as if to verify the circular route in a sort of mise en abîme.
The title connects the work to two previous variants on the same theme, made in 1975 (GPO-0319) and in 1976 (GPO-0334).
| 1979 | Athens, Galerie Jean Bernier, Giulio Paolini, 9 May - 5 June. |
| 2008 | Asti, Fondo Giov-Anna Piras per le Arti Contemporanee e la Fotografia, Art&Sounds. Interazione tra arte contemporanea e musica, 13 April - 5 July, no catalogue. |
| 2011 | Asti, Fondo Giov-Anna Piras, Imaginae 1960-1990, 21 May - 29 October, repr. n. pag. |
| 2019 | Cagliari, Musei Civici, Arte Povera: From the Olnick Spanu Collection, 26 July • 8 December, col. repr. n. pag., catalogue entry by G. Annabasi n. pag. |
| • | Jean Bernier Gallery 1977-1998 (Athens: Bernier-Eliades Gallery and Agra Publications, 1998), repr. n. pag. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 410 p. 418, repr. |
| • | Nothing is permanent. Albert Baronian, profession: galeriste, exhibition catalogue, Brussels, La Centrale électrique, Centre d’Art Contemporain de la Ville de Bruxelles, 2009, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Artbrussels 1980). |
