Hierapolis, 1982
GPO-0478
Pencil and ink on canvas and on floor, fractured plaster cast
Five canvases 46 x 55 cm each, overall dimensions site-specific
Fonds national d’art contemporain, CNAP, Yvon Lambert donation to the French State, Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris. Long-term loan to the Collection Lambert, Avignon
Gift of Yvon Lambert to the French State, 2012, inventory no. FNAC 2013-0331
The work occupies a whole room, with an approximately square base (min. approx. 5 x 5 m, max. approx. 8 x 8 m), inaccessible to the public and devoid of any other interference. The floor surface must be light, smooth, uniform, and suited to hosting the pencil and ink drawing.
The foreshortened profiles of twelve columns drawn in black ink starting from the diagonals of the room, and the same number of lines drawn in pencil so that they correspond to the columns, evoke a temple in ruins (only some of the columns, which are of different heights, are in part endowed with a capital). In the median zone, five primed canvases alternatively arranged from the recto or the verso, reproduce the pencil drawing on the floor, evidencing each time, in black ink, the prolonging of the straight or diagonal line on which they are situated. The focal centre of the installation – where the perspective from bottom up converges in the vanishing point of our gaze from above – coincides with the epicentre of the explosion of a plaster cast from an antique column.
Akin to the torn pieces of paper in other works, the broken pieces of cast – often offsetting, as they do here, an ideal trace of order – serve as clues, aimed at guiding the gaze towards the construction of an image, which, however, eludes the definition of a complete form.
The image of the temple – understood to be the indication of an unapproachable dimension akin to the Classical – is confirmed by the title, which, like in Ebla (GPO-0355) and in Selinunte (GPO-0373), harkens back to the name of an ancient city.
The same theme was also formulated in a variant made during the same year (GPO-0479).
| 1982 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Giulio Paolini. Hierapolis, 20 November - 22 December. |
| 1992 | Villeneuve d’Ascq, Musée d’art moderne; Tourcoing, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Yvon Lambert collectionne, 18 January - 20 April, cat. no. 223 p. 316, repr. p. 229. |
| 2003 | Rendez-vous 4. Collection Lambert, Hôtel de Caumont, Avignone 25 gennaio - 27 aprile 2003, senza catalogo. |
| 2019 | Avignon, Collection Lambert, Francesco Vezzoli. Le Lacrime Dei Poeti, 2 March - 10 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 154, col. repr. p. 102 (exhibition view). |
| 2023 | Avignon, Collection Lambert, Une histoire intime de l’art. Œuvres de la Donation Yvon Lambert, 25 March - 4 June, col. repr. pp. 218-219 (exhibition view Avignon 2019), referred to in the text by D. Grau p. 199. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. pp. 124-125. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. La Casa di Lucrezio, exhibition catalogue, Spoleto, Palazzo Rosari Spada (Casalecchio di Reno: Grafis Edizioni, 1984), repr. pp. 44-45. |
| • | G. Paolini, “Trionfo della rappresentazione”, in Furor 12 (Geneva), October, 1984, repr. no. 10. |
| • | S. Taylor, “A Conversation with Giulio Paolini”, in The Print Collector’s Newsletter 15, no. 5 (New York), November-December, 1984, repr. p. 167. |
| • | L’intelligenza dell’effetto: la messa in scena dell’opera d’arte, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Palazzo Dugnani (Florence: Alinea Editrice, 1985), repr. n. pag. |
| • | Italia Aperta, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Fundación Caja de Pensiones, 1985, repr. no. 44 p. 123. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. “Tutto qui”, exhibition catalogue, Ravenna, Pinacoteca Comunale, Loggetta Lombardesca (Ravenna: Agenzia Editoriale Essegi, 1985), repr. no. 37. |
| • | On Language and Ecstasy. A Generation in Italian Art, exhibition catalogue, Jyväskylä, Alvar Aalto-Museo, 1985, repr. p. 128. |
| • | Mater dulcissima, exhibition catalogue, Siracusa, Chiesa dei Cavalieri di Malta (Syracuse: Edizioni Tema Celeste, 1986), repr. no. 46 p. 83. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1986, vol. 3, repr. p. 30. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 211. |
| • | F. Poli, “Note di lettura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), pp. 44-45, repr. no. 109; republished in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), p. 73, not repr. |
| • | Identität: Differenz – Tribüne Trigon 1940-1990. Eine Topografie der Moderne, exhibition catalogue (Graz-Vienna-Colonia-Weimar: Künstlerhaus, Neue Galerie, Stadtmuseum and Böhlau Verlag, 1992), repr. p. 470. |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’oeuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by Id. (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 122- 123, repr. no. 37. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Early Dynastic, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Studio d’Arte Contemporanea Pino Casagrande (Milan: Skira editore, 2001), repr. p. 35. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), 365, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 478 p. 490, repr. |
| • | Post-Classici. La ripresa dell'antico nell'arte contemporanea italiana, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Foro romano – Palatino (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2013), col. repr. pp. 138-139. |
| • | Artisti nello spazio da Lucio Fontana a oggi: gli ambienti nell'arte italiana, exhibition catalogue, Catanzaro, Complesso Monumentale del San Giovanni (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2013), repr. p. 174. |
| • | B. Satre, “Giulio Paolini, entre fragment et fragmentation”, in Influxus, online journal, 28 May 2014. |
| • | Une histoire intime de l’art: Yvon Lambert, une collection, une donation, un lieu (Paris-Avignon: Centre national des arts plastiques, Éditions Dilecta and Collection Lambert, 2023), p. 199, col. repr. pp. 218-219 (exhibition view Avignon 2019), cited in the list of works from the collection p. 434. |
