Fuori catalogo (5 novembre 1940 - 18 settembre 1960), 2003

Eleven photographs portraying the artist at different times of his childhood and adolescence are arranged on the recto or the verso inside the transparent portrait holder and spread all around, on the surface of the plinth, together with several blank sheets. The first photograph in the portrait holder, which is larger than the others, portrays Giulio as a child holding a blank sheet (or canvas), while with the other hand he seems to be pushing through a door, broadly speaking, “he is entering the set of life”, as the artist says.
The work, realized for the retrospective at the Fondazione Prada in Milan in 2003, refers to the first twenty years of the artist’s life, from the day of his birth to the day before the realization of the first work in his “catalogue raisonné”, Disegno geometrico (GPO-0001), executed, according to the artist, on 19 September 1960 (hence, the dates cited in the title). In other words, the work is “not included in the catalogue” – in the sense that this came before – with respect to the work starting in 1960.