Le Poète, 1980
GPO-0437
Photo print, primed canvas, stage costume
Canvas 60 x 40 cm, photo print 30 x 24 cm
Collection of the artist
The work should be installed in the corner of a room, as though it were a solitary figure off to the side. It is also possible to install the work propping it up against a wall, but always in a position off to the side, never at the centre of a wall or a room.
• 1990, Bologna, Villa delle Rose: installation with the canvas with the canvas propped up against a piece of furniture, slightly off to the side as compared with the other works exhibited.
• 1994, Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus: together with the variant Le Dessinateur (GPO-0435), installation in precarious balance on the architraves of the passageways between the two exhibition spaces (“strange figures off to the side, suspended in mid-air, sheltered from the hustle and bustle and from the curiosity of the visitors”, G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), vol. 1, cat. no. 437, p. 447).
Le Poète recalls the eponymous automaton housed at the Musée des automates in Neuilly-sur-Seine, which instead of producing an image, only sighs, as if overcome by poetic emotion. The badge pinned to the canvas reproduces a fragment of the manuscript Lamia by John Keats.
Le Poète belongs to a trilogy of figures (GPO-0435, GPO-0436, GPO-0437) which each time feature a mechanical and impersonal sign pinned to their "chest" – an unprimed canvas the size of the artist's first work, Disegno geometrico (GPO-0001).
The theatrical costume that dresses the author's depersonalized "body" underscores a theme that is absolutely central to Paolini's research: the distance of the author, his non-involvement, his extraneousness to the becoming of the work.
Image from I poeti romantici inglesi e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Palazzo Braschi, 1980, p. 54.
| 1990 | Bologna, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Villa delle Rose, Giulio Paolini. Hotel de l’Univers, 27 May - 29 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 24 p. 17, repr. pp. 87, 89 (exhibition views). |
| 1994 | Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus, Giulio Paolini. Locus Solus, from 29 April, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. G2. p. 75, col. repr. p. 57 (exhibition view). |
| • | Kounellis, Paladino, Paolini, Bianchi, exhibition catalogue, Associazione Culturale Dogana, [Rome: 1996], col. repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Genoa 1994, flipped horizontally). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 437 p. 447, repr. (exhibition view Bologna 1990) and col. repr. (exhibition view Genoa 1994). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 213 (exhibition view Bologna 1990), col. repr. p. 217 (exhibition view Genoa 1994, detail). |
