Intorno a Saturno (2), 2021-24
GPE-0163
Around Saturn (2)
Inkjet Fine Art print
59 x 80 cm
Signed on the verso, centre, on a printed label with caption: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the verso, centre, on a printed label with caption
20 in Arabic numerals from 1/20 to 20/20
7 artist's proofs in Arabic numerals from 1/7 PdA to 7/7 PdA
Associazione dei Musei d'Arte Contemporanea Italiani (AMACI) in collaboration with Treccani Arte
The edition was commissioned from the artist by the Associazione dei Musei d'Arte Contemporanea Italiani (AMACI) as part of the project Treccani Arte x AMACI: a series of limited editions produced in collaboration with Treccani Arte on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the Giornata del Contemporaneo, celebrated on 12 October 2024. The twelve artists involved in the event in support of the Associazione, invited to choose a work from their own repertoire, include some of the artists who between 2005 and 2024 created the guiding image of a Giornata del Contemporaneo: Michelangelo Pistoletto (2006), Stefano Arienti (2010), Giulio Paolini (2011), Marzia Migliora (2013), Adrian Paci (2014), Alfredo Pirri (2015), Emilio Isgrò (2016), Liliana Moro (2017), Eva Marisaldi (2019), Giorgio Andreotta Calò (2022), Binta Diaw (2023), Tomaso Binga (2024).
The print reproduces, against a black background, a detail of the sculptural group Apollon servi par les nymphes (1666-75) by François Girardon and Thomas Regnaudin. To the left, the central figure bearing a tray offers, to the viewer's gaze, an image of the planet Saturn, while to the right the figure seen from behind – a copy mirroring the one standing to the left – carries upon a tray a beam of light and cosmic dust that stands out against a sidereal landscape. Small white disks or ones featuring a cosmic subject orbit at random around Saturn, as the title suggests, emphasizing the astral setting.
Overall, the dialogue between the classical – evoked by way of the sculptures – and the cosmic register celebrates, symbolically, the ideal dimension of Beauty and Art.
The print is based on a collage that was made in 2021, documented in the online Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper at number GPC-2103. As the number in the title tells us, this is the second variant in a theme that was begun during the same period with a first formulation developed on a single sheet (cf. GPC-2102).
François Girardon, Thomas Regnaudin, Apollon servi par les nymphes, 1667-74, marble, 230 x 300 x 270 cm, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles (reproductions from the front and back of the LP cover of the opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Le Temple De La Gloire, executed by Jean-Claude Malgoire, La Grande Ecurie & La Chambre Du Roy, CBS Masterworks, 1982).
| 2024 | Rome, Spazio Treccani Arte, Treccani Arte x AMACI, 12 October - 29 November, no catalogue. |
