Clio, 1977
GPO-0371
Collage and pencil on paper
Three framed parts 104 x 74 cm each, overall dimensions 104 x 226 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the third element, upper left: “Giulio Paolini / Clio / 1977”
Private collection, Prato
The three elements are placed at short intervals from each other.
The three framed sheets placed at short intervals from each other portray a room drawn in perspective inside which two identical representations of the Muse Clio (applied to the first and the third elements) gaze at each other. The specular juxtaposition is repeated in the central sheet in two proportionally reduced images, as if they were two paintings hanging on the rear wall of the room.
This iconographic theme was part of the distinctive research in Paolini's output around the mid-1970s, which began with Mimesi (GPO-0283). The crossed gazes of two identical subjects – in turned observed by the viewer's gaze – questions the relationship between the work, the viewer, and the representation.
The work was reproduced in a version on photographic canvas, made in 1978 (GPO-0377).
Figure from Thomas Hope, Costumes of the Greeks and Romans (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), plate 109 (“Clio from a statue in the Villa Borghese”).
| 1978 | Naples, Museo Diego Aragona Pignatelli Cortes, Giulio Paolini, from 9 February, no catalogue. |
| 1980 | Termoli, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Anabasi. Architettura e arte, 4 July - 30 September, repr. p. 176. |
| • | I. Tomassoni, “Giulio Paolini”, in Flash Art 94-95 (Milan, Italian edition), January-February, 1980, p. 5, repr. p. 9. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 1980, repr. p. 38. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Premio Bolaffi 1980 (Turin: Giulio Bolaffi Editore, 1980), repr. pp. 18-19. |
| • | P. Tortonese, “Non dimenticate il come e il perché”, in Nuovasocietà 231 (Turin), 12 February 1983, repr. p. 55. |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. pp. 136-137. |
| • | Der Traum des Orpheus. Mythologie in der italienischen Gegenwartskunst 1967 bis 1984, exhibition catalogue, Munich, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, 1984, repr. p. 84 (exhibition view Naples 1978). |
| • | G. Di Genova, Storia dell’Arte Italiana del ‘900 per generazioni. Generazione Anni Quaranta, vol. 6.1 (Bologna: Edizioni Bora, 2007), p. 16 endnote 23, repr. no. 9 (with technique referred to the version on canvas, see GPO-0377). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 371 p. 376, repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 157 (exhibition view Naples 1978). |
