Nadir, 1975
GPO-0305
Nadir
Pencil on reversed canvas
120 x 180 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso, upper left: “Giulio Paolini Nadir 1975”
Paul Maenz Collection, Berlin
The reversed canvas features the perspectival drawing of a room and at the same time it coincides with the fourth wall of that hypothetical room. By excluding us from its own “room”, the painting leaves us at a distance, in the real room where we find ourselves imagining it. The inextricable co-penetration of the spatial planes and optical illusions overturn the vision of a painting on the very act of its perception or of its construction within our gaze.
The title, whose pendant is Zenit (GPO-0304), refers to the system of astronomical coordinates where the zenith and the nadir designate two opposite poles. In common language, the two extremes recall the contrast between day and night.
| 1975 | Rome, Galleria D’Alessandro-Ferranti, Giulio Paolini, from 11 October. |
| 2002 | Berlin, DaimlerChrysler Contemporary, Private/Corporate. Werke aus der Sammlung DaimlerChrysler und aus der Sammlung Paul Maenz: Ein Dialog, 28 May - 21 July, repr. p. 43. |
| 2003 | Amiens, Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain de Picardie, Dessins de la Collection Paul Maenz, Neues Museum Weimar, 17 October - 13 December, repr. p. 79, referred to in the text by G. Wendermann p. 76. |
| • | Mediterranea 1. Incontro in Sicilia. Linee di ricerca dell’arte italiana, exhibition catalogue, Messina, Fiera Campionaria Internazionale, 1975, repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Rome 1975). |
| • | Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), repr. no. 201. |
| • | Paul Maenz Köln 1970-1980. Der Blick zurück ist ein Blick auf die Gegenwart und/oder Die Wahrheit hat viele Brüste (Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1981), repr. p. 25. |
| • | Avanguardia Transavanguardia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Mura Aureliane da Porta Metronia a Porta Latina (Milan: Electa, 1982), repr. no. 146 p. 91. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 50 (exhibition view Rome 1975). |
| • | F. Poli, “Note di lettura”, in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), p. 26, not repr.; republished in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), p. 41, not repr. |
| • | Roma in mostra 1970 1979. Materiali per la documentazione di mostre azioni performance dibattiti, edited by D. Lancioni (Rome: Edizioni Joyce & Co., 1995), cat. no. 539 p. 89, repr. no. 10 p. 79 (exhibition view Rome 1975). |
| • | Adieu, exhibition catalogue, Viterbo, Ex Chiesa di San Giovanni degli Almadiani, 1998, repr. p. 26 (exhibition view Rome 1975). |
| • | Italia 2000. Arte e sistema dell’Arte, edited by A. Bonito Oliva (Madrid-Milan: ARCO Madrid and Giampaolo Prearo Editore, 2000), repr. p. 63 (exhibition view Rome 1975). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 305 p. 315, col. repr. |
