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Idem III (regesto delle opere come motivo a spazi adiacenti), 1973

Archive number

GPO-0261

English title

Idem III (Register of Works as Adjacent Space Motif)

Technique

Pencil on tracing paper, graph paper, stiff supports, plexiglas cases

Dimensions

Sixteen framed parts 36.5 x 54.5 cm each, overall dimensions 148 x 222 cm

Inscriptions by the artist

Signed, titled, and dated on the verso of the sixteenth element, to the right: “Giulio Paolini / Idem (III) 1973”

Collection

Giorgio Marconi Collection, Milan

Display

The installation requires the close juxtaposition of the sixteen units, thus forming a rectangle comprising 4 x 4 elements, and as such confirming the criterion of adjacency that defines the design making up the work.

Description

Idem III consists of sixteen drawings contained inside plexiglas cases of the exact same dimensions, each of which made up of a pencil drawing on tracing paper, placed on a sheet of graph paper. The design joins a close-knit series of rectangles and squares of various dimensions, at times separated by a triangle, a circle, a diamond, or a hexagon.
Idem III is part of a cycle of seven works made between 1972 and 1978, which have in common the idea of a "register" of "works" formulated each time in the form of a different "motif" (GPO-0244, GPO-0245, GPO-0261, GPO-0265, GPO-0296, GPO-0335, GPO-0400). In the artist's own words: “The cycle of works entitled Idem is conceived as the hypothetical register of all the works in existence, that have existed, or that may exist: both abstract and virtual, it allows me to proceed in time and in the history of art by listing without naming them the images that comprise it”.1 “Idem does not identify which works, but, rather, indicates those works constituting a whole that in some way pre-exists any further analysis or identification".2
The same iconographic subject was also developed in a smaller version (GPO-1180), executed in the same year, as well as in some works on paper, also made that same year, one of which resulted in the print edition titled Idem (III) (GPE-0010).

1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245 p. 254.
2 G. Paolini interviewed by C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288.

Exhibitions

1974	Naples, Modern Art Agency, Giulio Paolini. Idem (III), from 26 January.
1974	Bern, Kunsthalle, 4 aus Italien. Alfano, Di Bello, Calzolari, Paolini, 9 March • 21 April, repr.
2007	Milan, Galleria Giò Marconi, Giulio Paolini, 4 May - 27 July.

Artist’ writings

•	G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 82, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 108; general commentary on the first four versions of Idem (GPO-0244, GPO-0245, GPO-0261, GPO-0265); first published in Paolini, exhibition catalogue, Bolzano, Galleria Il Sole, 1974, n. pag.
•	G. Paolini in the interview with C. Marchetti (1994), in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 288.
•	G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 245, p. 254.

Bibliography

•	Identité Italienne. L’art en Italie depuis 1959, edited by G. Celant (Paris-Florence: Centre Georges Pompidou and Centro Di, 1981), p. 435, not repr.
•	S. Isler, Del bello intelligibile. Semiotische Analyse zu sechs Werken von Giulio Paolini, PhD dissertation (Zurich: Philosophische Fakultät I der Universität Zürich, 1983), pp. 221-224, 228-241 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr.
•	M. Disch, “L’atto espositivo. Appunti sul lavoro di Giulio Paolini”, in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), pp. 117, 121 (in general on the cycle titled “Idem”), not repr.
•	Omaggio a Lucio Amelio. Reggia di Caserta, edited by A. Bonito Oliva and E. Cicelyn (Milan: Regione Campania and Skira editore, 2004), pp. 184-185, not repr.
•	M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 261 p. 272, col. repr.
•	Teatro di Mnemosine. Giulio Paolini d’après Watteau, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Spazio -1 Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati (Bellinzona: Edizioni Casagrande, 2015), repr. p. 39.