Narciso, 1982
GPO-0476
Narcissus
Photo emulsion on canvas
137 x 204 cm (two parts 137 x 102 cm each)
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the second canvas, upper stretcher bar: “Giulio Paolini / Narciso 1982”
Banca Intesa Sanpaolo Collection
Acquired in 1983, inventory no. A.D-04122A-L/IS
Two photographic canvases placed side by side reproduce the same view of the ruins of the Library of Pergamum, doubled specularly so that the trajectory of the divergent colonnades evokes a visual angle. The landscape of ruins serves as a backdrop to the mise-en-scène of two images of the bronze sculpture of Narcissus. In the artist's words: "Against the backdrop of the field of ruins, the figure of Narcissus seems to withhold the same image, from which it appears to be missing after its 'transformation' from copy to original. The identification of the one in the other is suggested by the reciprocal co-penetration of the figure and its portrait."1
The work is part of a series of nine works, made between 1981 and 1982, in which each time the reproduction of the antique sculpture cited in the title is added to the landscape of ruins (GPO-0451, from GPO-0470 to GPO-0477). The group of works is related to the collages made in the same year for a book co-authored with René Denizot for the Galerie Yvon Lambert (De bouche à oreille / Hearsay, Paris 1982).
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2006), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 476 p. 488.
• Narcissus, bronze statue unearthed in Pompeii, h 63 cm, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples; reproduction from Francis Haskell, Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 271, fig. 141 (”Narcissus”).
• Image of the ruins from Rose Macaulay, The Pleasure of Ruins (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977), p. 72.
| 2012-13 | Milan, Gallerie d'Italia, Cantiere del’900. Opere dalle collezioni Intesa Sanpaolo, from 25 October 2012, repr. p. 173, entry by F. Tedeschi pp. 239-240 (with incorrect reference to the exhibition in Paris 1982 and incorrect bibliographical reference for Denizot 1982), referred to in the text by F. Tedeschi p. 164. |
| 2021 | Turin, OVAL Lingotto, Vitalità del tempo. Le collezioni d’arte di Intesa Sanpaolo, 5-7 November, no catalogue. |
| 2023-24 | Naples, Gallerie d’Italia, Vitalità del Tempo, from 20 December, no catalogue. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2006), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 476 p. 488. |
| • | Arte italiana 1960/80 (New York-Turin: Banca Commerciale Italiana and Umberto Allemandi & C., 1984), pp. 86 (catalogue entry by A.C. Quintavalle), 147 (cited in the list of works from the collection exhibited in the New York headquarters), repr. p. 87. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 476 p. 488, repr. |
| • | L’arte moderna in Intesa Sanpaolo. L’ultimo novecento, edited by C. Pirovano and F. Tedeschi (Milan: Intesa Sanpaolo and Mondadori Electa, 2013), cat. no. 355, entry by F. Tedeschi pp. 223-224 (with incorrect indication of the first exhibition of the work), repr. p. 223. |
| • | T. Migliore, “Ritratti ‘portratti’. Giulio Paolini e l’identikit dell’artista”, in L’immagine che siamo. Ritratto e soggettivitˆ nell’estetica contemporanea, edited by M.G. Di Monte, M. Di Monte and H. de Riedmatten (Rome: Carocci editore, 2014), pp. 125-126, not repr. |
| • | Collezionisti e valore dell’arte in Italia 2022 (Milan: Edizioni Gallerie d’Italia and Skira, 2022), col. repr. p. 182. |
