Hic et nunc (Le Radeau de la Méduse), 1991
GPO-0680
Stretcher, canvas, easel, slide projector
Stretcher 490 x 715 cm, overall dimensions 245 x 860 x 725 cm
Collection of the artist
A stretcher – of the same size as the painting Le Radeau de la Méduse (1819) by Jean-Louis-Théodore Géricault, with two detached cross-bars, arranged so that one of them is across the work and the other one is on the ground, and an unstretched canvas of the same size crumpled between the wooden cross-bars – is propped up against an easel to suggest an unfinished painting or even someone who is "shipwrecked". A projector set down on the easel emits a beam of light that, besides recalling the light of the horizon in Géricault's painting as a sign of hope for the shipwrecked, is a prelude, in the hic et nunc (here and now) of the exhibition, to the potential miraculous apparition on the horizon line of our gaze.
By evoking the scene represented in the nineteenth-century painting, Paolini causes the drama and the precariousness of the raft adrift to correspond to the tension and uncertainty that preside over the realization of an artwork. In other words, the work stages the condition of unstable balance that precedes the definition of a vision or, vice versa, its irremediable breaking up: a situation hovering between hope and ruin, expectation and relinquishment.
Title and dimensions of the stretcher from Jean-Louis-Théodore Géricault, Le Radeau de la Méduse, 1819, oil on canvas, 491 x 716 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
| 1991 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Anteprima 1. Giulio Paolini, 4 May - 30 June, repr. pp. 12, 15, 16-17 (exhibition views), referred to in the text by G. Verzotti pp. 6-8. |
| 1991 | New York, SteinGladstone Gallery, Giulio Paolini, 26 October - 21 December. |
| 2002 | Naples, Castel Sant’Elmo, Grande Opera Italiana, 5 June - 22 September, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view New York 1991). |
| 2016-17 | Milan, Galleria Christian Stein, Giulio Paolini. Fine, 10 November 2016 - 29 April 2017, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 158, col. repr. pp. 64-67 (exhibition views), entry by M. Disch p. 158, referred to in the texts by L. Conte p. 31, S. Menegoi p. 85; exhibited at the venue in Pero. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with M. Bourel, “Giulio Paolini, contemplateur donc”, in Art Press 164 (Paris), December, 1991, pp. 18-19; republished in Italian in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 258-59. |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), p. 87. |
| • | A. Zevi, “Giulio Paolini: Le repliche del naufragio / The replicas of the shipwreck”, in L’Architettura 37, no. 433 (Rome), November, 1991, p. 907, repr. p. 909 (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | M. Bourel, “Giulio Paolini, contemplateur donc”, in Art Press 164 (Paris), December, 1991, pp. 18-19, repr. pp. 16-17 (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | D. Scudero, “È il mondo che gira”, in Opening 8, no. 22 (Rome), March, 1994, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’oeuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 127, repr. no. 39 (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | La forma restituita. Arte italiano de fin de milenio, exhibition catalogue, Palma de Mallorca, Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires, 2005, repr. p. 100 (exhibition view Naples 2002). |
| • | Castello di Rivoli 20 anni d’arte contemporanea, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea (Milan: Skira editore, 2005), col. repr. pp. 140-141 (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), pp. 366-367, not repr. |
| • | L. Cherubini, “Pasolini e noi”, in Pasolini e noi. Relazioni tra arte e cinema, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Archivio di Stato; Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Calcografia (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2005), p. 45, not repr. |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), repr. p. 87 (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 680 pp. 692-693, col. repr. (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | Paolo Mussat Sartor Luoghi d’arte e di artisti. 1968-2008 (Zurich: JPR|Ringier, 2008), repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | 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), col. repr. p. 317 (exhibition view New York 1991). |
| • | Imaginae 1960-1990, exhibition catalogue, Asti, Fondo Giov-Anna Piras, 2011, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Rivoli 1991). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. p. 274 (exhibition view Milan 2016). |
