Ante litteram, 1985
GPO-0541
Plaster casts, plexiglas case, white plinth
Plinth 80 x 40 x 40 cm, plexiglas case 40 x 40 x 40, overall dimensions 160 x 90 x 50 cm
The work was executed in a numbered edition of seven (?). The author inadvertently authenticated two editions with the number 1/6, designated here as “1/6 [a]” and “1/6 [b]”.
Depending on the edition, the overall number of plaster elements ranges from five to six, and the fragments piled on top of the case do not univocally represent the same anatomical parts (these are elements obtained each time via the manual and relatively random fracturing of a cast of the Borghese Gladiator).
| 1/6 [a] | Private collection, Florence |
| 1/6 [b] | Marian Goodman Gallery, New York |
| 2/6 | Marieluise Hessel Collection, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York |
| 3/6 | Private collection, Turin |
| 4/6 | Private collection |
| 5/6 | Private collection |
| 6/6 | Present whereabouts unknown |
The casts on top of the case should be arranged from the largest (below) to the smallest (above), so that they resemble an intricate and chaotic, albeit solid, whole.
Several parts of a plaster cast of the Borghese Gladiator, piled one on top of the other, top a plexiglas case, placed on a plinth, which holds the plaster cast of an anonymous, open hand.
The antinomy between the “void” inside the case – the isolated hand has "nothing to declare"– and the intricate mass of anatomical parts on top of the case refers to the absence of the subject that is in itself complete, and at the same time to the presence of the objects evoking a potential figure. As stated in the Latin phrase referred to in the title, the work is limited to foreshadowing something that is yet to come.
Borghese Gladiator, 1st century BC, marble, h 155 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
| 1985 | Paris, Galerie Maeght Lelong, Giulio Paolini. Melanconia ermetica, 14 May - 29 June, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 12 p. 32, not repr. |
| 1985 | Bari, Galleria Marilena Bonomo, Giulio Paolini. La pittura abbandonata, from 7 December; edition 1/6 [a]. |
| 1986 | Cologne, Galerie Paul Maenz, Giulio Paolini. Dal “Trionfo della rappresentazione” (cerimoniale: in prospettiva), 4 February - 1 March. |
| 1986 (?) | Oslo, Kunstnernes Hus, Fra usikkerhet til samlet Kraft..., 26 April - 8 June, in the main catalogue: not repr.; in the monographic volume Giulio Paolini. La pittura abbandonata: repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Bari 1985); edition 1/6 [a]. |
| 1986-87 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli, Markus Lüpertz, Giulio Paolini: figure, colonne, finestre, 19 December 1986 - 29 March 1987, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 59 p. 117, repr. p. 133 (exhibition view). |
| 1988 | Verona, Studio La Città, 20 anni fa/1968, from 28 April, touring to: Rome, Studio d'Arte Contemporanea Giuliana De Crescenzo, from 12 November, repr. n. pag.; edition 1/6 [a]. |
| 1989 | Verona, Studio La Città, Sculpttura: la scultura vista dai pittori, from 12 May, repr. p. 33; edition 1/6 [a]. |
| 1989 | New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, A Sculpture Show, 13 June - 28 July; edition 1/6 [b]. |
| 1990 | Turin, Galleria In Arco, Arte Povera, 14 June - 15 September, cat. no. 33, repr. n. pag. (exhibition views); edition 3/6. |
| 1992 | New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, Summer Group Show, Summer; edition 1/6 [b]. |
| 2002 | Molfetta, Sala dei Templari, L’incognita dell’Altro. Forme dell’alterità nell’arte contemporanea, 25 May - 20 June, repr. p. 83 (exhibition view Bari 1985); referred to in the text by G. Zaza p. 14. |
| 2005 | London, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, From Futurism to Arte Povera: Works from the Marcello Levi Collection, 14 September - 18 December, [title of the catalogue: Marcello Levi: Ritratto di un collezionista. Dal futurismo all’Arte Povera / Marcello Levi: Portrait of a collector. From Futurism to Arte Povera] cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 153, repr. p. 53 (exhibition view Rivoli 1986); edition 5/6. |
| 2007 | New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, 30/40. A Selection of Forty Artists from Thirty Years of Exhibitions at Marian Goodman Gallery, 23 October - 24 November, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 221, not repr.; edition 1/6 [b]. |
| 2016-17 | New York, Center for Italian Modern Art, Giorgio de Chirico – Giulio Paolini / Giulio Paolini – Giorgio de Chirico, 14 October 2016 - 24 June 2017, col. repr. pp. 34, 37 (exhibition views); edition 1/6 [b]. |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Difference and Affinity. Agnetti, Boetti, Paolini, Prini, 19 June - 7 September. |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Highlights from the Collection, 2 October - 14 December; edition 5/6. |
| • | Paul Maenz Ausstellungen / Exhibitions. Saison / Season 1985/86 (Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz, 1986), repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Cologne 1986). |
| • | Giulio Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1986, vol. 2, repr. p. 37 (exhibition view Cologne 1986). |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. p. 140 (exhibition view Rivoli 1986). |
| • | D. Paparoni, “Oggetto e cosa”, in Tema Celeste 25 (Syracuse), April-June, 1990, col. repr. p. 37; international edition: 24, January-March, 1990, col. repr. p. 41 (exhibition view New York 1989). |
| • | F. Poli, Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), repr. no. 117 (exhibition view Bari 1985). |
| • | Paul Maenz Köln 1970-1980-1990. Eine Avantgarde-Galerie und die Kunst unserer Zeit / An Avant-Garde Gallery and the Art of Our Time, edited by G. de Vries (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1991), repr. p. 204 (exhibition view Cologne 1986). |
| • | M. Unterdörfer, Die Rezeption der Antike in der Postmoderne: der Gipsabguss in der italienischen Kunst der siebziger und achtziger Jahre (Weimar: VDG Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften, 1998), pp. 38, 174, cat. no. 56 p. 145, repr. no. 31 p. 218 (exhibition view Rivoli 1986). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 541 p. 552 (with inaccuracies and omissions with regard to some differences between the editions), col. repr. (exhibition view New York 1989). |
| • | La collezione Rosella e Carlo Nesi. Un amore fiorentino, edited by A. Soldaini (Milan: Skira editore, 2020), p. 3, entry p. 383 cat. no. 188, col. repr. pp. 43 (installation view at Nesi Collection, Florence), 193. |
