Villa Romana, 1996
GPO-0775
Gilt frames, plaster cast
Fourteen gilt frames 40 x 60 cm each, cast 56.5 x 10 x 12.5 cm, overall dimensions 80 x 70 x 70 cm
Luisa Laureati Briganti Collection, Rome
Thirteen golden frames ranging in colour from yellow to purple are heaped together so that they cage a plaster miniature of the obelisk situated in the garden of Villa Medici in Rome (the site of the first exhibition of the work). Another identical frame is placed so that it is standing inside the pile, framing the obelisk in the manner of a portrait frame. The title was borrowed from a painting by Giorgio de Chirico.
“A title seems to refer, to name a specific subject represented in a certain work", says Paolini in a comment to the work. “But at the very same moment when it recognizes and identifies the subject in question, it turns its back to it, denies it, so that it gives itself over to the task of sealing the work that represents it. Hence, a 'Still Life' is not the apple or the pear that are depicted in a painting, but the very name of that specific painting that conveys the image to us. This ‘Villa Romana’ has mysterious origins and does not belong to anyone: its name is as uncertain as the place it evokes. The void that elevates it around a central point is at the same time the echo that can still be breathed in the garden inside Villa Medici and the silence that still bears down on the background of a painting signed G. De Chirico 1922”.1
1 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, exhibition catalogue, Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996), n. pag.
Title from Giorgio de Chirico, Villa Romana, 1922, tempera on canvas, 101.5 x 75.7 cm, private collection, New York.
| 1996 | Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici, Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, 13 March - 28 April, cat. no. 20, col. repr. and on cover, referred to in the text by M. Fagiolo Dell’Arco p. 22. |
| 2006 | Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, “Scelte da una Collezione”, from 25 October. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Correspondances, exhibition catalogue, Rome, French Academy, Villa Medici Roma (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1996), n. pag. |
| • | XLVII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, exhibition catalogue, Venice, La Biennale di Venezia (Milan: Electa, 1997), vol. Futuro Presente Passato, col. repr. p. 501. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), col. repr. p. 325. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 775 p. 789, col. repr. |
| • | A. Soldaini, “‘Cos’altro c’è da dire?’”, in Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), p. 39, col. repr. |
