Apollo e Dafne, 1978
GPO-0382
Apollo and Daphne
Photo print, plexiglas sheet, plaster cast, crumpled photo print
Photo print and plexiglas sheet 30 x 32 cm each
Signed, titled, dated, and numbered on the verso of the photo print: "Giulio Paolini / Apollo e Dafne / 1978 / [edition number]"
The work was executed in a numbered edition of three plus one artist’s proof.
| 1/3 | Consolandi Collection, Milan |
| 2/3 | Museo del Novecento, Milan |
| 3/3 | Private collection |
| A.P. | Private collection |
| 2/3 | Gift of Paola Gian Ferrari, 2012, inventory no. M9 105 |
• The work must be installed on a plexiglas or opaque white plinth (100 x 50 x 50 cm), topped by a plexiglas case (50 x 50 x 50 cm).
• The photograph should be arranged on the support in a slightly oblique position with respect to the sides of the plinth, and it should be held down by the plexiglas sheet whose function is to protect it.
• The plaster cast of a hand should be placed so that it protrudes just slightly with respect to the plexiglas sheet. The cast must be associated with the crumpled photograph as though it were trying to grab a "secret" (the front part of the fingers enters the crumpled paper). What must be created overall is a play of hands that try to grab each other, as if they were seeking something that continues to escape them (the title of the work and the reference to the mythological legend of Apollo and Daphne find their own expression in the hands that chase and seek each other).
• The crumpled photograph must be as crumpled as possible and not stiffly folded (in other words, it must resemble paper that has been screwed up, not a "boat" or an origami figure).
The plaster cast of an anonymous hand set upon a photograph of the detail of the hands of a group of marble figures,1 holds a crumpled copy of the same photograph.
“The gesture of the hand that attempts to appropriate itself of the photographic image to make it its own succeeds only at the cost of transforming it into a ‘thing’ and thus losing sight of it”.2 The grasp escapes at the very moment it is about to take place, akin to the myth of Apollo and Daphne, evoked in the title, when just as she is about to be caught by Apollo, the Nymph Daphne has herself turned into laurel.
1 The detail is from a reproduction of the Monumento a Niccolò Demidoff (1830-49) by the Neoclassical sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini.
2 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 382 p. 388.
Photographic detail of the hands: Lorenzo Bartolini, Monumento a Niccolò Demidoff, 1830-49, Carrara marble, Piazza Demidoff, Florence.
| 1978 | Turin, Galleria Christian Stein, Giulio Paolini. Il giudizio di Paride, from 8 May. |
| 1978 | Brussels, Albert Baronian, Giulio Paolini, from 28 September; edition 2/3. |
| 1979 | Athens, Galerie Jean Bernier, Giulio Paolini, 9 May - 5 June. |
| 1980 | Ghent, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Kunst in Europa na ’68, 21 June - 31 August, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 174, repr. p. 143 (exhibition view); edition 2/3. |
| 1984 | Villeurbanne, Le Nouveau Musée, Giulio Paolini, 20 January - 18 March, vol. Images/Index repr. p. 75, edition 3/3. |
| 1985 | Athens, Dracos Art Center, 4 March - 18 April, col. repr. n. pag.; artist’s proof. |
| 1985-86 | Montreal, Musée d’art contemporain, Giulio Paolini, 7 July - 8 September, touring to: Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, 29 November 1985 - 19 January 1986, same catalogue and same edition as for the solo exhibition in Villeurbanne 1984. |
| 1986 | Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Giulio Paolini, 15 February - 30 March, same catalogue and same edition as for the solo exhibition in Villeurbanne 1984. |
| 2012-13 | Milan, Museo del Novecento, Collezionare il Novecento. Claudia Gian Ferrari, collezionista, gallerista e storica dell’arte, 9 November 2012 - 3 March 2013, not repr., referred to in the text by D. Giacon pp. 23, 25; edition 2/3. |
| 2014 | Milan, Museo del Novecento, Munari Politecnico, 6 April - 7 September, not repr.; edition 2/3. |
| 2016 | Milan, FM Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, L’inarchiviabile, 7 April - 15 June, no catalogue. |
| 2020 | Piacenza, XNL Piacenza contemporanea and Galleria d’Arte Moderna Ricci Oddi, La rivoluzione siamo noi. Collezionismo italiano contemporaneo, 1 February - 10 January 2021, repr. p. 139, entry by G. Dal Lago p. 368; edition 1/3. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 382 p. 388. |
| • | Literatur im Raum, exhibition catalogue, Basel, Galerie Fina Bitterlin, 1986, repr. n. pag. |
| • | Jean Bernier Gallery 1977-1998 (Athens: Jean Bernier - Marina Eliades Gallery and Agra Publications, 1998), repr. n. pag. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 382 p. 388, repr. |
| • | B. Cinelli, “Il grande gioco dell’arte”, in Teatro di Mnemosine. Giulio Paolini d’après Watteau, exhibition catalogue, Lugano, Spazio -1 Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati (Bellinzona: Edizioni Casagrande, 2015), p. 69, repr. p. 68. |
| • | S. Hecker, Apollo and Daphne: Luciano Fabro and the Feminine (Los Angeles: Artusa Press, 2024), p. 33, col. repr. no. 17 p. 34. |
