Tout se tient, 1989
GPO-0655
Collage on velvet display, smoky plexiglas sheet and case
27 x 27 x 27 cm
Present whereabouts unknown
A dark blue velvet jewelry bust placed inside a dark plexiglas case is associated with a photographic cut-out of the Earth, arranged as though it were a pearl. Furthermore, the round object is placed in relation to a collage of planets, applied to the plexiglas sheet where the bust stands, further enhancing the precious and mysterious nature of the object inside the case.
The title – borrowed from linguistics, designating a whole in which all the parts are coherent and interrelated1 – alludes to celestial iconography, representing the model of perfection where everything is complete par excellence.
The same theme was developed in two later variants, one produced just before during the same year (GPO-0641), and the other dated 1998 (GPO-0809), which are distinguished for the different "jewel" evoked on the necklace bust.
1 The locution comes from the phrase “Chaque fait linguistique fait partie d’un ensemble où tout se tient” (every linguistic fact is part of a whole in which everything is connected to everything else), varyingly attributed to Antoine Meillet and to Ferdinand de Saussure.
Title from a sentence variously ascribed to Antoine Meillet and to Ferdinand de Saussure (“Chaque fait linguistique fait partie d’un ensemble où tout se tient”).
| 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. 26 p. 17, repr. pp. 87 (exhibition view), 93. |
| 1993 | Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus, Giulio Paolini. Locus Solus, from 22 October, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. A6 p. 71, col. repr. p. 17. |
| 2005 | Paris, Galerie Di Meo, Arte Povera, 20 May - 16 July. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 655 p. 671, col. repr. |
