Il vero, 1971-72
GPO-0243
Truth
Pencil, ink, engraving and collage on paper
Five framed elements 35 x 50 cm each, overall dimensions 35 x 258 cm
Private collection
The five elements are lined up in a row horizontally with short intervals in between them.
The common denominator of the five elements – lined up horizontally with short intervals in between them – is an intervention on the image of the title-page of the treatise Vero modo et ordine per disegnar [The True Method and Rules for Drawing] (1608). The work continues on sheets of drawing paper of increasing size on which the reproduction is applied. In the first three elements, a “drawing” – scribbling in pencil filling up the space, some ink blots, and some informal etchings of the paper itself, respectively – makes the central part of the image illegible, while in the fourth and fifth element a collage of fragments from the same title-page or a blank sheet of paper hides almost the entire seventeenth-century representation.
In the artist's own words: “The truth of the rules announced on the title-page is gradually belied by the 'truth' of the various interventions, which little by little are imposed from the centre towards the margins".1
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2003), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 243 p. 251.
Odoardo Fialetti, Il vero modo et ordine per dissegnar tutte le parti et membra del corpo humano (Venice: Justus Sadeler, 1608).
| 1973 | Milan, Galleria Françoise Lambert, Giulio Paolini, from 7 February. |
| 2018 | Milan, Galleria Fumagalli, Giulio Paolini. Teoria delle apparenze. Opere 1969-2015, 16 January - 14 April, col. repr. pp. 54-55, 57 (exhibition views). |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Difference and Affinity. Agnetti, Boetti, Paolini, Prini, 19 June - 7 September. |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Highlights from the Collection, 2 October - 14 December. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 243 p. 251, col. repr. |
| • | F. Guzzetti, “D come disegno. Della regola e dell’invenzione”, in Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), pp. 78-79, col. repr. p. 79. |
| • | F. Bosco, “Disegno vero e disegno finto: truth and drawing in the 1970s”, in Burlington Contemporary (London), biannual online journal, June, 2023, col. repr. |
