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Senza titolo, 1964

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Archive number

GPO-0068

English title

Untitled

Technique

Plywood panel and photo print mounted on wooden panel

Dimensions

190 x 150 cm

Inscriptions by the artist

Signed and dated on the verso on a white paper square: "Giulio Paolini 1964"

Collection

Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, Turin

Acquisitions and loans

Gift of the artist, 25 October 2012, archive no. GPO-0068
From 24 March 2018 to 24 March 2023 on loan at MART Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto

Description

A plywood panel featuring four rounded corners with adhesives on the back protrudes from a second wooden panel that is just slightly larger, thus leaving the edges of the support visible. In the area corresponding to a square cut out at the centre of the panel a smaller wooden element is covered by the photograph of a blank surface. The aim of the panel is to "present an image, albeit absent: the work becomes a frame', it structurally becomes the bearer of an image",1 according to Paolini, in retrospect.
The work is part of the research that distinguishes the artist's output in 1964, characterized by simple plywood panels that when placed on the ground or hung from the wall, in the artist's words, “‘replaced’ the presence of pictures on the walls and analyzed the purely conventional rapports of an exhibition” (1973).2 By expanding the gesture that merely suggests the possible vision of a painting, chosen by Paolini from the very outset as a paradigm of his own exploration, these works pave the way to the question that the painting raises at the moment of its exhibition and therefore its perception.
The photograph, which appears here for the first time, enters the scene through the negation of its function: it neither reproduces not bears witness to any subject or past moment; rather, it offers a blind surface, understood as the potential of an image.

1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2002), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 68 p. 99.
2 G. Paolini, "Note di lavoro", in NAC 3 (Milan), March, 1973, p. 10.

Exhibitions

2001-02	London, Tate Modern, Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972, 31 May - 19 August, touring to: Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 13 October 2001 - 13 January 2002; Los Angeles, MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, 28 April - 22 September 2002; Washington D.C., The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 23 October 2002 - 12 January 2003, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 93, p. 357, col. repr. p. 275 (incorrect floor installation); not exhibited in London, at the other venues incorrectly exhibited on the floor rather than on the wall.
2003	Milan, Fondazione Prada, Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, 29 October - 18 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 399, col. repr. p. 123.
2011	Bologna, MAMbo Museo d'Arte Moderna, Arte Povera 1968, 24 September - 26 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 682, not repr.

Artist’ writings

•	G. Paolini, “Note di lavoro”, in NAC 3 (Milan), March, 1973, p. 10; republished in Id., Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 42, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 68.
•	G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2002), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 68, p. 99.

Bibliography

•	Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), col. repr. p. 201 (incorrect floor installation).
•	Materialbild. Material Picture. Immagine materiale. Italia 1950-1965, edited by P. Weibel (Karlsruhe-Cinisello Balsamo: ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie and Silvana Editoriale, 2008), pp. 179-180, repr. p. 175 (incorrect floor installation).
•	M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 68 p.99, col. repr.