Les instruments de la passion, 1987
GPO-0588
Wooden trestles painted black, glass tabletop, primed canvas, halogen lamp, drawing paper fragments, photographic and glass fragments
Glass tabletop and primed canvas 180 x 270 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Private collection
Arranged on a table consisting of a plexiglas top resting on two trestles are fragments of drawing paper, pieces of glass and the torn details of a photograph of Disegno geometrico (1960). All together they isolate a central square of the same dimensions as the artist's first painting. Across the empty square, the halogen lamp located underneath the table projects an area of light on the primed canvas hanging from the ceiling in an inclined position with respect to the table.
The anecdotic provenance of the French title used by the artist to draw his paraphernalia goes back to his recollection of a guided viewing of Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgment (1450) in Beaune, particularly the moment when the gallery guide pointed out the panel of the polyptych depicting Christ’s instruments of the Passion.
The same theme was formulated in four other variants, respectively made in 1986 (GPO-0581), 1987 (GPO-0602) and 1998 (GPO-613), and 1998 (GPO-0810).
| 1987 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Corps étrangers, from 21 March, repr. pp. 52-53 (exhibition view), referred to in the text by R. Denizot pp. 50-51, 54. |
| 1988 | Grenoble, Magasin Centre national d’art contemporain, Meltem II, 10 July - 11 September, not repr. |
| • | Bilderstreit. Widerspruch, Einheit und Fragment in der Kunst seit 1960, exhibition catalogue, Cologne, Rheinhallen der Kölner Messe (Cologne: DuMont Buchverlag, 1989), repr. p. 60 (exhibition view Paris 1987). |
| • | M. Disch. Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 588 p. 603, repr. (exhibition view Paris 1987). |
