Eclisse (II), 1976
GPO-0336
Eclipse (II)
Pencil on primed canvas and on reversed canvas
80 x 120 cm
Signed, titled, and dated on the verso, upper stretcher bar, right: "Giulio Paolini / Eclisse (II) 1976"
Private collection, Lugano
The reversed canvas, applied to the middle of a larger primed canvas, is contained inside a hypothetical space featuring a painting at the centre of each wall. The paintings to the sides are drawn in perspective, while the reversed canvas simulates a painting situated on the fourth wall of the virtual space. The rectangle drawn at the centre of the reversed canvas corresponds to the painting located at the rear wall. Akin to an eclipse, in which a star is hidden from sight by the interposition of a celestial body, the overturned canvas subtracts the painting hypothetically hung on the wall at the back of the drawn room from the viewer’s gaze.
The work is the second of three variants – as indicated by the numbering in the title – made between 1975 and 1976 (GPO-0311, GPO-0336, GPO-0342).
| 1976 | Brescia, Banco (Galleria Massimo Minini), Giulio Paolini, 4-30 December. |
| 2013 | Prato, Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, La figurazione inevitabile, 24 March - 8 July, col. repr. p. 29, referred to in the text by M. Bazzini pp. 21, 23, 25. |
| 2015 | London, M & L Fine Art, Group Show, 15 October - 18 December. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 336 p. 346, col. repr. |
