Casa di Lucrezio, 1981

The theme of the Casa di Lucrezio was developed in seven variants in the same year (from GPO-0452 to GPO-0458), followed by two other versions made in 1982 and in 1984 (GPO-0481, GPO-0517). The common denominator between the works is the fragmentation of a plaster tablet bearing a drawing of a labyrinth carved on a pillar in Lucretius’s house in Pompeii,1 matched with a series of possible semblances of the Latin poet, evoked by the plaster cast of a head of Apollo and a piece of draped cloth. The cast of the ancient carving is broken each time into an increasing number of fragments – starting from the two broken parts in the first work – thereby accentuating its labyrinthine component.2 The gradual subdivision of the drawing also determines a complementary multiplication of the poet’s faces – starting from two heads and two cloths in the initial version – which along with the various positions of the cast and the variations in the colour of the cloths gradually expands the question as to the possibility of determining an ungraspable figure.
In the second version the tablet with the drawing of the labyrinth is divided into three parts, paired with a triple portrait of the poet (in this case his "attire" is ochre). The choreography of the elements at play involves a scene from the first work combined with two other poses: in one case the cast of the head is set down on the plinth atop the cloth that has been completely folded, with a fragment of the drawing placed on the ground; in another case, instead, the cast is placed on the ground, while the fragment is set down on the plinth, atop the cloth that drops down along the sides.
In the artist's words: “The intentionality of this work lies in evoking – and not representing – the idea of the continuous becoming of a possible space, inhabited by poetry. The title leads to another place, the casts point to their place of provenance, the drawing of the labyrinth evokes not just another place – the House of Lucretius – but also the symbolic figure of the labyrinth. These are all various elements which are meant to subtract themselves from vision to instead suggest a dense void of evocation, the making of space for the chances of imagination that each one of us harbours inside”.3

1 The original drawing with the words “Labyrinthus Hic Habitat Mynotaurus” is from the Enciclopedia Einaudi, vol. 8 (Turin: 1979), p. 12, under “labirinto”, and is described as a labyrinth "on a pillar of the House of Lucretius". The Pompeiian house where the drawing was discovered was actually the domus of the duovir Marcus Lucretius Fronto, and not of the poet Titus Lucretius Carus (cf. G. Sarullo, “Labirinti a Pompei: a proposito di CIL IV 2331”, in Oebalus. Studi sulla Campania nell’Antichità 3 (Rome), 2008, pp. 203-223; I am grateful to Stefano Menichini for this information). On his part, Paolini does not remember whether his association was simply a case of poetic license or an unwitting mistake.
2 The drawing was carved on plaster tablets measuring 35 x 35 cm, which were later shattered.
3 G. Paolini interviewed by F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana V, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21. On the labyrinth as the inspiration for the work cf. G. Paolini interviewed by C. Grenier, in Flash Art 3 (Milan, French edition), Spring, 1984, p. 41.