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Idem VI (regesto delle opere come motivo in forma di piramide), 1976

Archive number

GPO-0335

English title

Idem VI (Register of Works as Pyramid Motif)

Technique

Painted wood

Dimensions

Six parts 20 x 30 x 30 cm each, overall dimensions variable

Inscriptions by the artist

Each element is signed, titled, dated (“1976”), and numbered (from 1/6 to 6/6)

Collection

Present whereabouts unknown

Display

The installation of the work requires that each pyramid be set on a plinth, slightly elevated from the support surface by means of a piece of card stock or other stiff material. The six plinths must be lined up in a row, 30 cm apart, and the chromatic range of the pyramids should develop from white (on the first plinth) to black (on the last one).
The placement on a single long support surface can only be hypothesized in a domestic and private situation: in any other display context the artist prefers that the installation be on individual plinths.

Description

A large number of geometric shapes made of wood painted from white to black and piled up in order of decreasing size make up six monochrome pyramidal units.
The work is the next-to-last episode in the cycle Idem, comprising seven works made between 1972 and 1978, all of which share the idea of a "register" of "works" formulated each time in the form of a different "motif" (cf. GPO-0244, GPO-0245, GPO-0261, GPO-0265, GPO-0296, GPO-0400). In the artist's own words: “The cycle of works entitled Idem is conceived as the hypothetical register of all the works in existence, that have existed, or that may exist: both abstract and virtual, it allows me to proceed in time and in the history of art by listing without naming them the images that comprise it”.1 "Idem does not identify which works, but, rather, indicates those works constituting a whole that in some way pre-exists any further analysis or identification".2

1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245 p. 254.
2 G. Paolini interviewed by C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288.

Exhibitions

1976	Cologne, Galerie Paul Maenz, Giulio Paolini. Idem (VI), 2-27 November.

Artist’ writings

•	G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Atto unico in tre quadri, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Studio Marconi (Milan: Gabriele Mazzotta editore, 1979), p. 79 (taken from the foldout of the solo exhibition at the Galleria Mario Diacono, Bologna, October 1978).
•	G. Paolini in the interview with C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288.
•	G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245 p. 254.

Bibliography

•	Paul Maenz. Jahresbericht 1976 (Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1977), repr. pp. 12-13 (exhibition view Cologne 1976).
•	Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), repr. p. 526 (exhibition view Cologne 1976).
•	W.M. Faust, “Et quid amabo: Notizen zu Arbeiten von Giulio Paolini”, in Giulio Paolini. Del bello intelligibile, exhibition catalogue, Bielefeld, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, 1982, p. 18 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), repr. p. 19 (detail).
•	S. Isler, Del bello intelligibile. Semiotische Analyse zu sechs Werken von Giulio Paolini, PhD dissertation (Zurich: Philosophische Fakultät I der Universität Zürich, 1983), pp. 221-223, 226, 228-241 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr.
•	W.M. Faust, “Die Galerie als Erzählung”, in Paul Maenz Köln 1970-1980-1990. Eine Avantgarde-Galerie und die Kunst unserer Zeit / An Avant-Garde Gallery and the Art of Our Time, edited by G. de Vries (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1991), repr. p. 34 (detail and exhibition view Cologne 1976).
•	M. Disch, “L’atto espositivo. Appunti sul lavoro di Giulio Paolini”, in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), pp. 117, 121 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr.
•	M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 335 pp. 344-345, col. repr., b/w repr. (exhibition view Cologne 1976).
•	The Helga and Walther Lauffs Collection (New York-Göttingen: Zwirner & Wirth and Steidl Verlag, 2009), vol. 2, repr. p. 166 (exhibition view Cologne 1976).