Amore e Psiche, 1981
GPO-0443
Cupid and Psyche
Photo emulsion on canvas, stretchers, coloured fabrics
Canvas 55 x 65 cm, seven stretchers 55 x 65 cm each, overall dimensions variable
The Olnick Spanu Collection, New York
From 1991 to 2001 on loan at Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Turin
The more or less extended arrangement of the cloths and the stretchers caught up in each of them can vary depending on the space that is available. The cloths are held up against the wall behind the canvas.
The drawing reproduced on the photographic canvas hanging from the wall represents the head and the shoulders of an ancient female figure seen from the back, while the seven large pieces of coloured cloth that fall to the ground, arranged on the basis of the sequence of the spectrum, simulate its attire.
In analogy with the ancient Greek tale in which Psyche was condemned to never lay her gaze on Cupid, a youth of superhuman beauty, or else lose him1 the female figure evoked in the drawing and the colourful costume has “all of beauty behind her”.2 The seven stretchers caught up in the pieces of cloth symbolically allude to the artist's desire to hold back the absolute that escapes all appropriation – a desire which is renewed over and over again in spite of the awareness of its impossibility
1 The myth of Cupid and Psyche is told by Apuleius in Metamorphoses (4,28 - 6,24).
2 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2000), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 443 p. 453.
Figure from Thomas Hope, Costumes of the Greeks and Romans (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), plate 243 (“Roman empress”).
| 1981 | Paris, Musée national d’art moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Identité italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, 25 June - 7 September, not repr. |
| 1983 | Turin, Galleria Christian Stein, Giulio Paolini, 19 January - 1 March. |
| 1983 | Cologne, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Eine Kunst-Geschichte in Turin 1965-1983, 8 October - 13 November, col. repr. p. 86 (installation view at Christian Stein’s home, Turin). |
| 1985 | Long Island City, New York, P.S.1 The Institute for Art and Urban Resources, The Knot. Arte Povera at P.S.1, 6 October - 15 December, col. repr. p. 155 (installation view at Christian Stein’s home, Turin). |
| 1996 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Collezionismo a Torino, 15 February - 21 April, col. repr. pp. 30, 32 (exhibition views). |
| 1996 | Villeurbanne, Nouveau Musée/Institut d'Art Contemporain, Collections du Castello di Rivoli, 13 June - 21 September, cat. no. 48, not repr. |
| 2011-12 | Milan, Triennale di Milano, Arte Povera 1967-2011, 25 October 2011 - 29 January 2012, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 681, col. repr. no. 320 (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| 2017 | Cold Spring, Magazzino Italian Art, Margherita Stein: Rebel Without a Cause, from 24 June, no catalogue. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), p. 58. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with E. Pizzo, in Giulio Paolini. Casa di Lucrezio, 1981-84, visitor’s guide (Rivoli: Castello di Rivoli Museo d’arte contemporanea, 1987). |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2000), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 443 p. 453. |
| • | Domus 621 (Milan), October, 1981, col. repr. p. 61 (exhibition view Paris 1981). |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 59 (installation view at the gallery-cum-house of Christian Stein, Turin). |
| • | Coerenza in coerenza. Dall’Arte Povera al 1984, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Mole Antonelliana (Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1984), col. repr. p. 86 (installation view at the gallery-cum-house of Christian Stein, Turin). |
| • | A. Mammì, I. Panicelli, “Giulio Paolini. Bibliografia”, in Giulio Paolini. La Casa di Lucrezio, exhibition catalogue, Spoleto, Palazzo Rosari Spada (Casalecchio di Reno: Grafis Edizioni, 1984), p. 26, not repr.; republished in Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, exhibition catalogue, Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli, 1986, p. 81, not repr. |
| • | B. Paulino-Néto, “Giulio Paolini”, in Beaux-Arts Magazine 25 (Paris), June, 1985, col. repr. p. 41 (installation view at the gallery-cum-house of Christian Stein, Turin). |
| • | E.R. Comi, “Luci sull'Arte Povera”, in Lo spazio umano 4 (Milan), October-December, 1985, repr. p. 89. |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 195 (installation view at the gallery-cum-house of Christian Stein, Turin). |
| • | F. Poli, “Giulio Paolini”, in Contemporanea 2 (Turin, Italian edition), Summer, 1988, col. repr. p. 95 (exhibition view New York 1985); international edition: 1, no. 2 (New York), July-August, 1988, col. repr. p. 94. |
| • | G. Celant, Arte Povera (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1989), col. repr. p. 161 (installation view at the gallery-cum-house of Christian Stein, Turin); French edition: Arte Povera (Villeurbanne: Art Édition, 1989), col. repr. p. 169. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), col. repr. p. 51 (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | Arte all’arte. IV edizione: 1999, exhibition catalogue, San Gimignano, Arte Continua, 1999, repr. p. 198 (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | Arte povera in collezione (Rivoli-Turin-Milan: Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Edizioni Charta, 2000), catalogue entry by M. Disch p. 210, col. repr. p. 211 (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | R. Guarnieri, “L’ermeneuta e il pathos”, in Psiche 10, no. 2 (Rome), December, 2002, b/w repr. p. 117, col. repr. on cover (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), plate no. V (exhibition view Paris 1981). |
| • | F. Poli, Arte in Piemonte. Il Novecento (Ivrea: Priuli & Verlucca Editori, 2007), col. repr. on back cover (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 443 p. 453, col. repr. (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | G. Celant, Arte Povera. Storia e storie (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2011), col. repr. p. 304 (installation view at Castello di Rivoli, Rivoli, 1999). |
| • | G. Perez, “Listening, Reading and Looking. A Conversation with Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu", in Paper Media: Boetti, Calzolari, Kounellis, exhibition catalogue, New Paltz, State University of New York, The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (Cold Spring: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, 2019), pp. 113-114, not repr. |
| • | S.M.S. Cammarata, “‘Identité italienne 1981’. Storia e significati di una mostra”, in L’uomo nero. Materiali per una storia delle arti della modernità 17, n.s, no. 17-18 (Milan), February (Milan - Udine: Mimesis Edizioni, 2021), pp. 286, 293, not repr. |
| • | L. Madaro, “Ordine e rigore nell’archivio di Giulio Paolini”, in Arte 574 (Milan), June, 2021, col. repr. p. 82. |
| • | Praemium Imperiale 2022. In honour of Prince Takamatsu (Tokyo: The Japan Art Association, 2023), col. repr. p. 9. |
| • | S.M.S. Cammarata, Arte povera e identità italiana. Le mostre di Germano Celant (Milan: Postmedia Books, 2025), pp. 113-114, 124, repr. p. 122 (installation view New York 1985). |
