Enfin seuls, 1981
GPO-0441
Pencil and red pencil on primed canvas and on reversed canvas
Nine parts 100 x 150 cm each, overall dimensions 305 x 455 cm
Titled, signed, and dated on the verso of canvas number 5, upper centre: “Enfin seuls” / Giulio Paolini / 1981”
Private collection, Berlin
From 1995 to 2005 on loan at Neues Museum, Weimar
The group of nine canvases placed close together (the one in the middle is reversed) feature at the left and right ends two figures in ceremonial dress, intent on buttoning their cuff. The cones of vision of their gazes, drawn in red pencil, cross the canvas and contain a second drawing, which repeats the same scene: two male figures drawn at the edge of the two canvases next to the reversed one, which features the drawing of their visual angle.
The French expression in the title (“alone, finally”) alludes to the geometry of the gazes freed from any interferences and suspended in the void of a pure abstraction, which qualifies the whole as a mise en abîme of our own act of gazing at a painting.
“Enfin seuls deals with a recurring theme in my work (already announced in Giovane che guarda Lorenzo Lotto [GPO-0140], via Vedo [GPO-0188], Chimera [GPO-0314], Mimesi [GPO-0283] and all the way to De pictura [GPO-0417]), where the gaze does not capture a full-fledged object of vision, but, rather, illustrates the enigma of its own course. In other words, 'seeing' is in turn seen as the subject and the object of the representation".1
The male figure in ceremonial dress, introduced in 1972, represents a stand-in typical of the author. For Paolini, the elegant, aloof, and composed figure plays the role of an actor who announces something miraculous: the author does not offer the gaze a finished work, but limits himself to announcing the space of the representation, the place assigned to host unpredictable visions.
1 G. Paolini, Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 102.
Figure from Antonio Sandre, Il costume nei tempi (Turin: Scuola Taglio Moderno, 1961), p. 268, fig. 299 (”Da ‘Minister’s Gazette of fashions’, 1925-30”), with the transformation of the original jacket into a tailcoat.
| 1984 | Villeurbanne, Le Nouveau Musée, Giulio Paolini, 20 January - 18 March, not repr. |
| 1985-86 | Montreal, Musée d’art contemporain, Giulio Paolini, 7 July - 8 September, touring to: Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, 29 November 1985 - 19 January 1986, same catalogue as for the solo exhibition in Villeurbanne 1984. |
| 1986 | Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Giulio Paolini, 15 February - 30 March, same catalogue as for the solo exhibition in Villeurbanne 1984. |
| 1999 | Weimar, Neues Museum, Auffrischender Wind aus wechselnden Richtungen. Internationale Avantgarde seit 1960: Die Sammlung Paul Maenz, 1 January - 31 December, repr. cat. no. 84 p. 120, catalogue entry by H. Dickel, repr. p. 321 (exhibition view, detail). |
| 2002-03 | Weimar, Neues Museum, Vis-à-vis. Malerische Positionen aus den letzten sechs Jahrzehnten, 7July 2002 - 21 April 2003, no catalogue. |
| 2014 | London, Whitechapel Gallery, Giulio Paolini. To Be or Not to Be, 9 July - 14 September, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 155, repr. p. 115, entry by M. Disch p. 114-115, referred to in the text by I. Bernardi p. 92. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 102. |
| • | Die Sammlung Paul Maenz Neues Museum Weimar. Band I: Objekte, Bilder, Installationen (Weimar-Ostfildern-Ruit: Neues Museum and Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1999), repr. p. 120 cat. no. 84, entry by H. Dickel, repr. p. 321 (detail). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 441 p. 451, repr. |
| • | L. Vecere, In assenza. Appunti sull’autoritratto contemporaneo (Pisa: University Press, 2017), pp. 84-85, not repr. |
