Sipario e fondale per il Teatro del Castello di Rivoli, 1997

Commissioned for the Teatro del Castello di Rivoli, the two sheets characterized by a white and blue background, respectively, bear the image of six valets arranged in perspective. Each of them is holding parts of images lined up horizontally. The small images are constituted by the museum's graphic logo, which in the case of the light-coloured curtain frames the photographic detail of a work in the permanent collection, and, in the case of the dark-hued background, a square featuring a starry sky or the cut-out image of a planet. In the artist's own words: “In the ‘daytime’ backdrop, the upper half is crossed by a series of empty squares scattered randomly, which turn into paintings when they become part of the logo held by the valets. In the ‘night-time’ backdrop, the valets instead appear to be holding a pyramidal structure made up of the museum’s graphic logo, which here and there intercepts a celestial body”.1

1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2006), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 782 p. 796.