L’Efebo, 2024
GPO-1175
The Ephebos
Plaster casts, white plinths
Four casts 44 x 23 x 23 cm each, four plinths 85 x 40 x 40 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Collection of the artist
The installation of the work requires that the four parts are situated so that they correspond to the median points of the four sides of a square area measuring around 200 x 200 cm or less, which ideally should be empty.
Four plaster casts of the bust of an Ephebos are placed on an equal number of white plinths thus constituting the median points of the four sides of a square; each of the four figures is gazing towards the centre.
In the first exhibit of the work at Studio G7 in Bologna, the central area of the display space hosts another work by the artist, titled Ultimo modello (GPO-1176). “The Ephebos is duplicated twice and is arranged along the four sides of Ultimo modello. The individual, corporeal beauty embodied by the male figure is captured contemplating the symbolic space evoked by Ultimo modello, in an unmitigating confrontation between the one and the other truth”, the artist remarks.
The title, in the singular form, refers to the same figure represented four times, as if the gaze of the one copy included within itself the crossed gaze of the other three copies.
Head of Benevento (Bust of Ephebos), c. 50 BC, bronze and copper, Museo Archeologico Regionale, Agrigento.
| 2024 | Bologna, Galleria Studio G7, Giulio Paolini. Un posto vuoto, 24 September 2024 - 4 January 2025. |
| • | G. Paolini, Eccomi. Qui dove sono (Turin: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, 2025), col. repr. p. 100 (exhibition view Bologna 2024). |
