Le cygne noir, 1993-94
GPO-0724
Easel, black ink on plexiglas, photographic negatives, black pencil, engraved plexiglas sheets
Three plexiglas sheets 80 x 120 cm each, overall dimensions 250 x 145 x 145 cm
Paneghini Collection
• 1994, Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus: the work was a pendant piece to Notti bianche (GPO-0723), which included, among the other elements, a white pencil.
An easel is located at the centre of two overlapping, staggered plexiglas sheets with carved diagonals (a symbolic allusion to the diagonals of Disegno geometrico, GPO-0001) lying on the floor. Propped up on the easel is a third sheet featuring the same format; its diagonals are squared as well, and on it is the black ink profile of an angry swan. In the area corresponding to the eye, which coincides with the point of intersection of the carved diagonals, a black pencil holds down several negatives of previous works by the artist.
In the artist's own words: “The negatives and the pencil allude to the impossibility of a synthesis between what has already been seen (negatives) and transparency (the sheets still on the ground): between the before and the after of that untranslatable and fleeting statement that is the work of art".1
The title refers to the homophony of the French word “cygne” (swan) and “signe” (sign), on the one hand indicating the black outline of the drawing, and on the other the swan as poetic symbol of purity and beauty (the implicit allusion to the “cygne” sung by Mallarmé and Baudelaire dates back to a group of earlier works by the artist, made from 1984 and entitled L’exil du cygne [GPO-0513, GPO-0514, GPO-0610, GPO-0652, GPO-0712, GPO-0915]).
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2005), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 724 p. 739.
Jan Asselijn, De Bedreigde Zwaan, 1650, oil on canvas, 144 x 171 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
| 1994 | Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus, Giulio Paolini. Locus Solus, from 25 February, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. E2 p. 73, col. repr. p. 37. |
| 1994 | Venice, Museo Correr, “Preferirei di no”. Cinque stanze tra arte e depressione, Venice, Museo Correr, 30 April - 3 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 149, col. repr. p. 48, referred to in the text by G. Alessandri p. 41. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2005), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 724 p. 739. |
| • | A. Querci, “Giulio Paolini, la métaphore du damier”, in El guía. Art de l’arc méditerranéen 7, no. 2 (Barcelona), February, 1994, col. repr. p. 61. |
| • | M. Disch, “Giulio Paolini. Hors-d’oeuvre”, in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by Id. (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 123-124, repr. no. 36. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 724 p. 739, col. repr. |
