Equivalenza, 1975
GPO-0281
Equivalence
Pencil, unstretched canvas and nails on primed canvas
120 x 180 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the fourth canvas, upper stretcher bar, centre: “Giulio Paolini / Equivalenza 1975”
Present whereabouts unknown
Four primed canvases joined at the back to form a single large painting feature the drawing of three paintings seen in perspective (the likeness is reinforced by the actual nails placed along the vertical sides). An unstretched and folded canvas is applied where the canvases converge, in the area corresponding to the central rectangle.
“My use of perspective is an artifice, an attempt to create a distance with the presence of the painting as such. This artifice, made evident, gives me a chance to move the scene of the work away from the physical limit of vision, and to acknowledge the existence of a curtain that appears before our eyes”,1 Paolini remarks.
The same theme was developed in three other variants made during the same year (GPO-0279, GPO-0280, GPO-0282).
1 G. Paolini interviewed by F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21 (statement revisited by the artist); republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 207-208.
| 2002 | Siena, Palazzo delle Papesse, Centro Arte Contemporanea, De Gustibus. Collezione privata Italia, 3 March - 12 May, repr. p. 31 (installation view at De Angelis Testa Collection, Milan). |
| 2006 | Milan, Museo della Permanente, La Bellezza, 6 May - 4 June, col. repr. p. 103 (cropped on the left and right sides). |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 207-208. |
| • | M. Fagiolo, “Glossario”, in Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), p. 26, repr. no. 196. |
| • | Artisti italiani contemporanei 1950-1983, exhibition catalogue, Venice, Chiesa di San Samuele (Milan: Electa, 1983), repr. p. 48 (with incorrect caption). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 281 p. 292, col. repr. |
