Dilemma, 1996-01

This project, which was never realized, is part of the initiative by the City of Turin, assigned to the curatorship of Rudi Fuchs and Cristina Mundici, involving the addition of eleven permanent works, commissioned from contemporary artists, in specific sites along the path of Turin's new Passante Ferroviario.1
The commission given to Paolini for a work opposite the piazza of the future station of the Passante on Corso Enrico De Nicola, at the intersection with Via Cassini, dates to 1996. After a period of stasis, the initiative was relaunched in 2000-01 in view of its imminent realization; it was then postponed indefinitely once again.
Paolini's idea involved three stone pedestals (250 x 120 x 120 cm each) distributed on a quadripartite base. “One of the four parts of the base was empty: the absence of the fourth pedestal is underscored by a cavity with steps going down, equal and contrary to the one in which a broken pedestal, akin to a ruin, is instead placed on two steps going up. The other two parts, placed opposite each other along the diagonal of the base, held two other pedestals: one upside-down, the other right-side-up",2 the artist explains. A male figure in a contemplative attitude, to be made in bronze, was planned for the right-side-up pedestal.
Unlike this project, which was developed in 2001, the first idea that came to light in 1996 included four pedestals all turned in the same way and situated at the centre of a single base (40 x 1000 x 1000 cm). The seated figure observed some fragments – clothes, papers, books – scattered here and there on the basement.
The title refers back to the one used for three previous works, made in 1989 (GPO-0639), 1993 (GPO-0720), and 1995 (GPO-0747).

1 Cf. Artecittà. 11 Artisti per il Passante Ferroviario di Torino, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, 1998. Of the eleven works that were planned, only the ones by Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, and Per Kirkeby were actually produced.
2 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Early Dynastic, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Studio d’Arte Contemporanea Pino Casagrande (Milan: Skira editore, 2001), p. 67. The project included three other unpublished variants with alternative solutions for the placement of the figure on the base rather than on the pedestal, or with the omission of the figure in favour of several objects arranged on top of a pedestal and/or in the cavity of the missing pedestal.