Passe-partout, 1988
GPO-0630
Pencil and collage on paper
Twenty-four parts 35 x 50 cm each, overall dimensions 181 x 256 cm
Private collection
The assemblage of twenty-four elements placed at short intervals portrays the drawing of a room in perspective with two paintings on the side walls. An empty cut-out in the area corresponding to a hypothetical painting on the back wall – the painting is offered and held by the valet – allows for a glimpse of the (real) wall behind him. Above and below this empty rectangle are two halves of a drawing of the same view in perspective. As the title suggests, the assemblage simulates a passepartout which frames a rectangle in the wall, thereby emphasizing the absence of the central subject.
This theme was also formulated in a variant from the same year (GPO-0631), which is distinguished by the valet's position and the absence of the collage around the rectangle at the centre.
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 630 p. 648, col. repr. |
| • | J. Lageira, “Giulio Paolini. Ut pictura poesis”, in Id., Regard oblique. Essais sur la perception (Brussels: La Lettre volée, 2013), p. 115, repr. p. 116. |
| • | T. Christiansen, “A Milano, arte, materia, luce. Ospiti di Nicolò Cardi”, in Elle Décor 3 (Milan), March 2023, col. repr. pp. 128-129, 135 (installation view at Cardi Collection, Milan). |
