Hotel de l’Univers, 1990
GPO-0678
Red ink and collage on paper
Nine framed parts 70.2 x 96.7 cm each, overall dimensions 215 x 295 cm
Titled, signed, and dated on the verso of the ninth element, lower left: “Hotel de l’Univers / Giulio Paolini / 1990”
Private collection
The framed drawings placed at short intervals to form a large painting are the ones that in the 1990 solo exhibition in Bologna entitled "Hotel de l'Univers" announced, on the threshold of each room and in the manner of an overdoor, the works on display – the eight rooms numbered with Roman numerals were arranged clockwise starting from the first at the top left – while the photographic reproductions are pages torn from the catalogue of the same exhibition. In the central element, the rectangle corresponding to the drawing of the room held up by the valets is blank and allows the wall to be glimpsed; the drawing is torn into eight fragments, which in part stick out from the back of the sheet in the empty rectangle, and in part are dispersed all around.
| 1991 | Parma, Galleria Niccoli, Un’idea di leggerezza, 4 May - 18 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 54, col. repr. p. 47 (flipped horizontally, first state), referred to in the text by L. Cherubini p. 15. |
| 1991 | Milan, Galleria Christian Stein, Anselmo, Bianchi, Kounellis, Merz, Paolini, Salvadori, from 1 July. |
| • | Italiana. From Arte Povera to Transavanguardia, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama, Nicaf 3 (Milan: Fondazione Mudima Edizioni, 1994), col. repr. p. 206 (incorrect installation of elements 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, first state). |
| • | La forma restituita. Arte italiano de fin de milenio, exhibition catalogue, Palma de Mallorca, Centre Cultural Contemporani Pelaires, 2005, col. repr. p. 13 (exhibition view Milan 1991). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 678 p. 690, col. repr. |
