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Mimesi, 1975

Archive number

GPO-0317

English title

Mimesis

Technique

Resin casts with marble support

Dimensions

Two casts h 33 cm each

Collection

Rosa and Gilberto Sandretto Collection, Milan

Acquisitions and loans

From 1976 to 1991 on loan at Neue Galerie, Staatliche und Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Kassel

Description

Two resin casts of the head of Venus are arranged opposite each other, just slightly staggered so that their gazes cross.
The exchange of gazes between the two identical figures questions the very reasons for the existence of the work and its coming in to being by way of our gaze. In the artist's own words: “When I place two identical editions of the same antique sculpture one in front of the other it is not because I want to be the artificer or the rediscoverer of those sculptures; rather, my purpose is to be the observer who perceives the distance that separates them, hence, all the chances for a relationship or the lack of one that are determined between them, and between those images and ourselves”1.
The same theme, formulated for the first time that same year with two heads of Praxiteles’ Hermes (GPO-0283) as well as in the form of a multiple, with two heads of the Medici Venus, was also formulated in another variant made during the same year (GPO-0318), as well as in two later versions featuring whole figure casts made in 1976 (GPO-0330) and in 1988 (GPO-0620), respectively.

1 G. Paolini interviewed by F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 209.

Sources

Aphrodite of Cnidus, Roman copy of the 4th century BC original by Praxiteles.

Exhibitions

2014	New York, Dominique Lévy Gallery, ‘Hypothesis for an Exhibition’, 8 July - 16 August, col. repr. p. 100.

Artist’ writings

•	G. Paolini in the interview with F. Pasini, in L’Illustrazione italiana 5, no. 24 (Milan), November, 1985, p. 21; republished in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), p. 209.

Bibliography

•	B. Schnackenburg, “Giulio Paolini”, in B. Schnackenburg, W. Bojescul, Kunst der sechziger Jahre in der Neuen Galerie Kassel. 38 Werkinterpretationen (Kassel: Staatliche und Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Neue Galerie, 1982), p. 58, repr. p. 59.
•	M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 317 p. 326, repr.
•	Symmetries. Three Years of Art and Poetry at Dominique Lévy, edited by S. Gorelick (New York: Dominique Lévy, 2016), col. repr. p. 35 (exhibition view New York 2014).