Locus Solus (R.R.), 2024
GPE-0161
Offset print
Munken Lynx Rough 120 g
29.7 x 21 cm
Printed title, signature and date on the verso, centre: " "Locus Solus" / (R.R.) / Giulio Paolini / 2024"
No numbering
200 unnumbered copies
30 unnumbered signed extra copies
The official print run of the print edition is unnumbered, nor does it feature an original autograph inscription (the title, date, and signature printed on the verso reproduce the inscriptions by the artist on the back of the original collage). The print has two holes on the left side so it can be inserted in the binder – available from the publisher – together with the other editions in the series, thus constituting a "book".
Yvon Lambert Éditions, Paris
This edition is the sixty-second publication in the series Locus Solus created by the Parisian gallerist and publisher Yvon Lambert in 2022. Conceived as a collection of "poems", according to a broad meaning of the term, the series is based on the invitation addressed to international artists and writers from various generations to contribute a work on a topic of their choice, to be elaborated on a sheet of paper sized A4. Each sheet comes with two holes on the left side so it can be inserted in a binder, and thus constitute the "pages" of a "book" that gradually grows and develops.
Includes information regarding the publisher, series, title, edition size, and date of printing (October 2024).
The portrait of Raymond Roussel includes, in random order, the images of some of Giulio Paolini's previous works dedicated to the French writer, three of which based on the use of the same portrait of Roussel.1 Instead, at the bottom centre is the colour reproduction of a globe, with a circular cut-out, as if the protagonist were holding it with his legs; the cut-out portion of the image is located just above it to the left.
A singular author, Roussel is a recurring "guest" in Paolini's works, starting from 1969, and often through the use of the portrait: "What interests me about Roussel is the figure, his biography, his thinking",2 the artist asserts, identifying an elective affinity with the solitary writer and his image as an elegant dandy. Several homages to Roussel feature a chessboard motif – as also attested to by some of the works reproduced in the print edition – as the signature style of the enigmatic narrative and linguistic palimpsests the French writer experimented with. Just like the globe represented in the image, which by doubling up subtracts itself from a univocal and absolute image. "I share his attraction towards something without wanting to touch or take it as one's own, however",3 Paolini adds in regard to his fascination with Roussel.
1 From left to right and from top to bottom the works on paper are reproduced as follows: Studio per "Sala d'attesa", 2011-12 (GPC-1698), Studio per "Locus Solus", 1975 (GPC-0408), La pura verità, 1994 (GPC-0877), Studio per "Rendez-vous", 1985 (GPC-0683), Studi per "Abat-jour (giochi proibiti), 1986 (GPC-0702, particolare), Senza titolo, 1998 (GPC-0977), Studio per "Sala d'attesa" (Rendez-vous), 2011-12 (GPC-1349).
2. G. Paolini in a letter to Elio Grazioli, 19 February 2022.
3 Ibid.
• Background image: portrait of Raymond Roussel taken by Bernhard Wagner, 1910; reproduction form François Caradec, Vie de Raymond Roussel (1977-1933) (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert éditeur, 1972), p. 96 (“Raymond Roussel, Carlsbad, 1910”).
• Title from Raymond Roussel, Locus Solus (Paris: Alphonse Lemerre, 1914).
