Studio per “Synopsis”, 2006
GPO-0932
Study for “Synopsis”
Collage on paper
Four parts 44 x 44 cm each, overall dimensions 90 x 90 cm
Titled, dated, and signed on the verso of the fourth element, centre: “Studio per / “Synopsis” / 2006 / Giulio Paolini”
Private collection, Milan
The four elements placed at short intervals each feature a telescopic perspective, generated by an alternating succession of white and photographic frames (shots and reverse shots of the artist’s studio). At the centre, in the vanishing point, the perspective converges in the image of an easel. The latter is empty and allows the viewer to glimpse the canvases propped up against the wall (first element), or associated with a white surface (second element) or a black one (third element), or articulated by a cross-piece recalling a painting respectively turned so that it is seen from the recto or the verso. The first, second, and fourth elements also include an anonymous viewer seen from behind, situated at a variable distance.
The passepartout frame, the artist’s studio, the easel, the viewer, and the telescopic perspective: all these elements are a foretaste of the viewing of a painting, which from one element to another, however, moves away for as far as the eye can see.
The same theme, developed in three other variants from the same year that are mainly distinguished by a different number of viewers (GPO-0931, GPO-0933, GPO-0934), is developed further in the work of site-specific overall dimensions Synopsis (Quattro parti), made in the same year (GPO-0935).
Views of Giulio Paolini’s studio taken by Paolo Mussat Sartor, 1997.
| 2010 | Rome, German Academy, Villa Massimo, Soltanto un quadro al massimo: Giulio Paolini – Candida Höfer, 12 May - 2 July, col. repr. in the limited edition published on the occasion of the exhibition. |
| 2010 | Rome, Giacomo Guidi & MG Art – Arte Contemporanea, Una questione di spazio, 16 September - 6 November, col. repr. in the exhibition brochure, referred to in the text by L. Pratesi. |
| • | Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea 2010-2011 (Rome: Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea, [2011]), p. 24, col. repr. pp. 22, 23, 25, 27 (exhibition views Rome 2010, Giacomo Guidi & MG Art). |
| • | Soltanto un Quadro al Massimo, edited by J. Blüher and L. Pratesi (Rome: Deutsche Akademie Rom, Villa Massimo, 2015), col. repr. p. 177 (exhibition view Rome 2010, Accademia Tedesca). |
