Senza titolo, 1986
GPO-0565
Untitled
Collage on colour photo print
Four framed parts 110 x 160 cm each, overall dimensions 222 x 322 cm
Reggia Vanvitelliana, Terrae Motus Collection, Caserta
Gift of the artist, 1986
The installation of the work against the wall requires a large amount of space all around it. Ideally, there should be no other elements on the same wall that might interfere with it. The horizontal median line that divides the two upper elements from the lower ones should be 160 cm off the ground (i.e. at the viewer’s eye level).
The four elements, turned so that they are horizontal, should be hung at short intervals, approximately equal to the width of the frame (ca. 2 - 2.5 cm). The order of the sequence of the elements is mandatory; no other installations are permitted.
The foreshortened profiles of twelve columns, reproduced in the four photographic enlargements placed at short intervals, converge towards the median area, where they correspond to the sunburst of twelve straight lines outlining the central square, so that the focal centre coincides with the vanishing point of the bottom up perspective. The dilapidated architecture evoked by the columns is also associated with an explosion of fragments of images, borrowed from the reproductions of the works of the artists represented in the first part of the exhibition of the “Terrae Motus” collection in Herculaneum in 1984.
The work realized as part of the "Terrae motus" collection project – curated by Lucio Amelio in Naples after the earthquake in Irpinia in November 1980 – harkens back to the iconographic theme of a work from 1982, Hierapolis (GPO-0478, GPO-0479), which was in turn reformulated in 1984 in the work Dinokrates, 1984 (GPO-0518).
Images from Terrae Motus, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Fondazione Amelio (Naples: Electa, 1984):
• Carlo Alfano, Studio per Narciso, 1981, graphite on parchment, 50 x 32 cm (cat. no. 9).
• Joseph Beuys, Terremoto in Palazzo, 1981, room-size installation, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. nos. 19, 20).
• Anselm Kiefer, Ohne Titel, 1983 (book), mixed media on paper, 40 x 60 cm (cat. no. 47).
• Anselm Kiefer, Et la terre tremble encore, d’avoir vu la fuite des géants..., 1982, oil and stone on canvas, 170 x 130 cm, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 48).
• Richard Long, Napoli Circles, 1984, lava stones, Ø 300 cm (cat. no. 54).
• Richard Long, Vesuvius Circle, 1984, lava stones, Ø 220 cm, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 55).
• Nino Longobardi, Senza titolo, 1983, mixed media on canvas, 203 x 522 cm, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 59).
• Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack with Crown, 1983, photograph, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 65).
• Robert Mapplethorpe, Skull and Crossbones, 1983, photograph, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 66).
• Mario Merz, Vento preistorico dalle montagne gelate, 1981, installation, private collection, Naples (cat. no. 72).
• Gerhard Richter, Static, 1982, oil on canvas, 200 x 320 cm, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 93).
• Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1984, mixed media on canvas, 100 x 70 cm, Fondazione Amelio, Naples (cat. no. 109).
| 1986 | Ercolano, Villa Campolieto, Terrae Motus 2, 7 March - 31 May, not repr. (graphic processing n. pag.). |
| 2013 | Caserta, Reggia Vanvitelliana, MeMus – Terrae Motus, 28 March - 2 June, no catalogue. |
| 2022-23 | Caserta, Reggia Vanvitelliana, new installation of the Terrae Motus Collection, from 17 December 2022, no catalogue. |
| • | Terrae Motus. La collezione Amelio alla Reggia di Caserta (Milan: Skira editore, 2001), cat. no. 53 pp. 198-199 (erroneously dated “1966”), col. repr. pp. 120-121 (incorrect installation). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 565 p. 576, col. repr. |
| • | B. Satre, “Giulio Paolini, entre fragment et fragmentation”, in Influxus, online journal, 28 May 2014. |
| • | Civiltà delle macchine 3 (Rome), 2022, col. repr. pp. 10-11. |
