Summa copiosa, 1983
GPO-0484
Pencil and collage on paper and on wall
Ten framed parts 50 x 35 cm, overall dimensions 286 x 227 cm
Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich
Acquired in 1983, inventory no. 90584
The female deity drawn on the wall serves as the epicentre of an allegorical dissemination of laurel leaves. The leaves used to create the figure’s diadem – nine like the number of Muses – and the ones scattered on the wall are authentic, while the ones in the ten collages that frame the figure are drawn or imitated using fragments in the shape of a leaf cut out of reproductions of previous exhibitions by the artist.
Inspirational Muse, the figure of Memory and Poetry, the goddess who dispenses “mirages” presides over the countless visions suggested by the hypothetical painting shaped on the wall as though it were a “summa” of other paintings.
Figure from Davide Bertolotti, L’Italia descritta e dipinta con le sue isole di Sicilia, Sardinia, Elba, Malta, Eolie, di Calipso, ecc. 2 (Turin: Giuseppe Pomba e C., 1837-38), plate 14 (“Pitture antiche. Pompei. Peintures Antiques”).
| 1983 | Turin, Galleria Christian Stein, Giulio Paolini, 19 January - 1 March. |
| 1984 | Zurich, Kunsthaus Zürich, Internationale Neue Kunst aus der Sammlung MGB. Erwerbungen 1977 1984, 11 May - 17 June, col. repr. p. 79 (erroneously dated “1982” and with two leaves missing from the diadem). |
| 1986 | Geneva, Musée Rath, Art Contemporain dans la collection FCM. Acquisitions 1977-1986, 9 October - 23 November, col. repr. p. 79 (with two leaves missing from the diadem). |
| 1994 | Lugano, Museo Cantonale d’Arte, Arte contemporanea dalla Collezione della Federazione cooperative Migros, 1 April - 5 June, cat. no. 52 p. 133, col. repr. p. 53 (with two leaves missing from the diadem). |
| 2005 | Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Giulio Paolini. Esposizione universale, 23 April - 24 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 10 p. 87, col. repr. n. pag. (exhibition view), referred to in the text by D. Schwarz p. 22. |
| 2008 | Zurich, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Sammlung / Collection, 1 June - 17 August, repr. p. 330. |
| • | Il Grande Disegno, exhibition catalogue, Fiesole, Palazzina Mangani (Florence: Fratelli Alinari Editrice, 1983), repr. p. 87 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | Giulio Paolini, vol. Images/Index (Villeurbanne: Le Nouveau Musée, 1984), repr. p. 152. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. La Casa di Lucrezio, exhibition catalogue, Spoleto, Palazzo Rosari Spada (Casalecchio di Reno: Grafis Edizioni, 1984), col. repr. p. 27 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | S. Vertone, “Non tutto qui”, in Giulio Paolini. “Tutto qui”, exhibition catalogue, Ravenna, Pinacoteca Comunale, Loggetta Lombardesca (Ravenna: Agenzia Editoriale Essegi, 1985), p. 46, repr. no. 40 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | G. Celant, Arte Povera. Storie e protagonisti / Art Povera. Histories and protagonists (Milan: Electa, 1985), repr. p. 229 (with two leaves missing in the diadem and erroneously dated “1982”); idem in the reprint included in Id., Arte Povera. Storia e storie (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2011). |
| • | On Language and Ecstasy. A Generation in Italian Art, exhibition catalogue, Jyväskylä, Alvar Aalto-Museo, 1985, col. repr. p. 127 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 203. |
| • | F. Poli, Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), repr. no. 48. |
| • | La pittura in Italia. Il Novecento. 3. Le ultime ricerche, edited by C. Pirovano (Milan: Electa, 1994), col. repr. no. 310 p. 253 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | 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. 92-93, repr. no. 16 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | L.V. Masini, L’arte del Novecento. Dall’Espressionismo al Multimediale, vol. XI: L’Arte come idea (Florence-Rome: Giunti and Gruppo Editoriale Espresso, 2003), col. repr. no. 2852 p. 559 (with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), repr. p. 77. |
| • | Sammlung/Collection migros museum für gegenwartskunst 1978-2008, edited by H. Munder (Zurich: Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst and JPR Ringier, 2008), cited in the list of works from the collection and repr. p. 330 (erroneously dated “1982” and with two leaves missing in the diadem). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 484 pp. 496-497, col. repr. |
