Platea, 1977
GPO-0348
Audience
Ink on typescript
Dismantled work
For his intervention at the event curated by Mirella Bandini at the Teatro Gobetti in Turin on 3 May 1977, Paolini headed twelve sheets of paper by typing the names of the four participating artists (three sheets per artist), and then giving them to his fellow artists so they could sign the relative pages, but with the name of the other artists, so that the name for each one was "signed" in someone else's handwriting. Paolini then distributed the twelve sheets on the chairs in the front row of the seating area.
Platea offers a game of role playing, which involves the fiction of the theatre where each person is someone else: in the circularity of the names, the autographic signatures are the exchangeable figures of the same identity.
The same theme, formulated for the first time in 1975 (GPO-0298), was revived in a later version made in 1978 (GPO-0378).
| 1977 | Turin, Teatro Gobetti, Bagnoli, Merz, Paolini, Salvadori, 3 May. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Premio Bolaffi 1980 (Turin: Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 1980), repr. pp. 20-21. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Werke und Schriften 1960-1980 (Lucerne: Kunstmuseum Luzern, 1981), repr. on cover. |
| • | Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), repr. p. 538. |
| • | Coerenza in coerenza. Dall’Arte Povera al 1984, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Mole Antonelliana (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1984), repr. p. 158. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 158. |
| • | M. Bandini, “Quegli anni Settanta a Torino”, in Flash Art 24 (Milan, Italian edition), no. 162, June-July, 1991, p. 92, not repr.; international edition: 24, no. 160, October, 1991, p. 109, not repr. |
| • | M. Mininni, Arte in scena. La performance in Italia 1965-1980 (Ravenna: Danilo Montanari Editore, 1995), p. 141, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 348 p. 359, repr. |
| • | L. Conconi and M. Corti, ”Cronologia 1947-2024”, in Studio Celant, Remo Salvadori, edited by A. Soldaini (Milan: Skira editore, 2025), p. 134, not repr. |
