Le Dessinateur, 1980
GPO-0435
Photo print, primed canvas, stage costume
Canvas 60 x 40 cm, photo print 30 x 24 cm
Collection of the artist
The work should be installed in the corner of a room, as though it were a solitary figure off to the side. It is also possible to install the work by propping it up against a wall, but always in a position off to the side, never at the centre of a wall or a room.
• 1980, Rome, Galleria Ugo Ferranti: installation in a corner of the room (exhibited together with Ritratto dell’artista come modello, GPO-0433).
• 1990, Zurich, Galerie Annemarie Verna: installation in a corner of the room.
• 1994, Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus: together with the variant Le Poète (GPO-0437), installation in precarious balance on the architraves of the passageways between two exhibition spaces (“strange figures off to the side, suspended in mid-air, sheltered from the hustle and bustle and from the curiosity of the visitors”, G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2008), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), vol. 1, cat. no. 437, p. 447).
Pinned to a canvas that the artist "dressed" with an eighteenth-century jacket is a reproduction of the portrait of Louis XV made by the famous automaton-draughtsman by the Jaquet-Droz brothers, housed at the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Neuchâtel.
Le Dessinateur belongs to a trilogy of figures (GPO-0435, GPO-0436, GPO-0437) which each time feature a mechanical and impersonal sign pinned to their "chest" – an unprimed canvas the size of the artist's first work, Disegno geometrico (GPO-0001).
The theatrical costume that dresses the author's depersonalized "body" underscores a theme that is absolutely central to Paolini's research: the distance of the author, his non-involvement, his extraneousness to the becoming of the work.
Portrait of Louis XV from Alfred de Chapuis, Edmond Droz, Les Automates des Jaquet-Droz (Neuchâtel: Musée d’histoire, 1951).
| 1980 | Rome, Galleria Ugo Ferranti, Giulio Paolini. Ritratto dell’artista come modello, from 18 November. |
| 1990-91 | Zurich, Galerie Annemarie Verna, Quotations. Annemarie Verna Gallery 1969-1989. Part III, 24 November 1990 - 27 January 1991. |
| 1994 | Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus, Giulio Paolini. Locus Solus, from 29 April, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. G1. p. 75, col. repr. p. 55 (exhibition view). |
| • | Kounellis, Paladino, Paolini, Bianchi, exhibition catalogue, Associazione Culturale Dogana, [Rome: 1996], col. repr. n. pag. (exhibition view Genoa 1994). |
| • | Artmonie. Architettura e scultura negli spazi pubblici, exhibition catalogue, Ivano Fracena, Castel Ivano, 1997, col. repr. p. 110 (exhibition view Genoa 1994). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 435 p. 446, repr. |
