Solitaire, 2022
GPE-0154
Silkscreen, collage and originale coloured pencils drawing by the artist
Cotton paper
Plate 27.5 x 15 cm folded, 27.5 x 30 cm open
Signed on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
20 in Arabic numerals from 1/20 to 20/20
4 unnumbered artist’s proofs
Alberto Tallone Editore, Alpignano (Turin)
The print was commissioned from the artist by the publishing house Alberto Tallone Editore, Alpignano (Turin) – directed by Aldo and Enrico Tallone – on the occasion of the publication of the work by Honoré de Balzac titled Treatise on Elegant Living. The publisher's catalogue includes deluxe editions of past and contemporary prose and poetry, created and produced entirely by hand.
Honoré de Balzac, Trattato della vita elegante (Alpignano: Alberto Tallone Editore, 2022). 27.8 x 15.4 cm, 104 pages, bound with soft cover, double hard casing. Foreword by Paolo Tortonese, essay by the author in Italian translation, no illustrations. Limited edition of 225 numbered copies, of which 20 include the folded print edition, inserted in a white sleeve with flaps.
The image printed in silkscreen, with a fold in the middle, features the figure in a blue tone of an upside-down acrobat, precariously balanced on the index finger of his right hand, while to either side two male figures seen from behind, wearing tails and a top hat, observe the scene as though they were composed and impassive spectators. Along the perimeter of the plate, short lines indicate the median axes (the horizontal one is at the eye level of the two spectators). From one edition to the next of the edition size, this printed image is integrated with an original collage, made up of paper fragments falling freely all around the acrobat. The torn details are taken from different kinds of reproductions, from partial views of the sky, and from cosmic phenomena and geometric motifs and drawings in the artist's repertoire.
The title, already used in two previous prints (GPE-0016, GPE-0108), recalls the card game solitaire, which is referred here to the acrobat who each time practices delicate balancing acts. The protagonist is a stand-in for the author, engaged in virtuous as well as risky acrobatics: his "playing cards" are constantly being assembled and disassembled, until they are dispersed in tatters, which in turn are a prelude to new compositions, and so on.
The iconographic theme was first formulated in the large-scale work Caduta libera (suicida felice) from 2018-19 (GPO-1073). The figure of the upside-down acrobat, introduced in 1992 in two works on paper (GPC-0840, GPC-0870), particularly appears in the wall work Crystal Palace, 1997 (GPO-0786) and later in several studies on paper (cf. GPC-1253, GPC-1275, GPC-2369).
The collage documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-2182 represents the thematic base for the various copies of the complete edition size.
| • | S. Salis, “Un’opera di gran carattere”, in Arbiter 232 (Milan), August-September, 2022, p. 60, not repr. |
