Segni particolari. Studio per “Parade”, 1997

The three framed elements placed at short intervals offer a sequence of squares (or paintings) with a black or white background, divided by a grid drawn in pencil. The squares to the sides contain various figures taken from the works of other artists, while at the centre of the "parade" a stand-in for the author is intent on moving the game pieces of his chequerboard in the attempt to build a painting.1 The ensemble is constellated by a multitude of small squares coloured according to the gamma included between the dawn and the dusk – the small squares are taken from colour reproductions of the sky – in part in the shape of a star, in part incorporated in the pattern of the black or white squares.
The work is related to a project that was never realized for the De Koninklijke Schouwburg at The Hague, commissioned from the artist as part of the refurbishment of the theatre (1997-99) curated by the architect Charles Vandenhove. The intervention planned in the new spaces accessing the gallery foresaw a "parade" of figures, in the form of ten large-format images.2

1 From left to right, entering the scene are the Indifferent by Jean-Antoine Watteau, who holds hands with Angelica by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (flipped horizontally), Lorenzo Bartolini's Narcissus, a man seated with his head in his hands taken from a painting by Lionello Balestrieri, offsetting Salvador Dalì's Gala Nude seen from behind (it too flipped horizontally), and, lastly, two female figures wearing ancient costumes. The central motif corresponds to the iconography of Paolini’s work made during the same year titled Segni particolari (GPO-0821): this explains the use of the expression in the title.
2 Some models were reproduced in Charles Vandenhove. Art and architecture (Tournai: La Renaissance du Livre, 1998), p. 132 (cf. also pp. 56, 287-291 for the architectural project) and in E. Mézil, K. Zwarts, Charles Vandenhove. Art in Architecture (Ghent: Ludion, 2005).