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La tela della Veronica, 1988

GPO-0635

Veronica’s Veil

Canvas, ribbon made up of weaved paper elements, steel pedestals

Eight pedestals h 80 cm each, overall dimensions 500 x 500 x 500 cm

Broedbeck Collection, Catania

Delimiting an area that is inaccessible to the public is a ribbon consisting of numerous strips cut out from colour posters and reproductions of the artist's solo exhibitions. The ribbon is supported by eight small steel columns. At the centre of the area, hanging from the ceiling way up high is a crumpled up canvas alluding to the sacred image referenced in the title.
“The work is above us, unreachable, and beyond the reach of the author, or the spectator, confining them to beyond the enclosure, which constitutes the only decipherable trace of an impracticable and unknowable place", remarks the artist as concerns the work.
1
The same theme was reformulated with the same title, but in formally different terms, in 1998 (GPO-0811).

1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2005), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 635 p. 653.

1989 Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Giulio Paolini, 15 April - 18 May.
1990 Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Portrait d’une Collection d’Art contemporain. Collection Uhoda, 3 February - 25 March, col. repr. p. 37 (exhibition view Paris 1989).
2004 Siracusa, Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea Montevergini, Per amore. Il collezionismo privato d’arte contemporanea in Sicilia, 1-23 May, no catalogue.
G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2005), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 635 p. 653.
F. Poli, “Note di lettura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), pp. 38-39, repr. no. 137 (exhibition view Paris 1989); 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. 63.
Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, op. cit. (Ostfildern-Ruit: 1998), repr. p. 286 (exhibition view Paris 1989).
M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 635 p. 653, col. repr. (exhibition view Paris 1989).
Entry by Maddalena Disch, 30/04/2026