Identikit, 1987-88

A light-hued wooden portrait frame with a white passepartout holds, between the empty central part and the stand, a crumpled photographic enlargement of the drawing of a figure in a tail-coat, suggesting a presumed self-portrait.
Akin to the figure in ceremonial dress, the figure in a tail-coat (or elsewhere the valet de chambre wearing a seventeenth-century costume) is a distinctive stand-in for the artist, and a recurring motif in the 1980s. Identifying himself as an actor (master of ceremonies, artificer, announcer), Paolini's aim is to emphasize his role as merely an interpreter (mediator, bearer, presenter), who limits himself to heralding a representation or foreshadowing the potential occurrence of something.
The work is part of a series of five variants, made from 1987 to 2003, which are distinguished by the various elements that are associated each time with the portrait frame (GPO-0589, GPO-0616, GPO-0622, GPO-0642, GPO-0883).