Signore e Signori..., 1988
GPO-0618
Ladies and Gentlemen...
Blue tempera cards, fragments of photographic reproductions, golden clips, men’s shoe, ballerina shoe, music stand, nylon thread, spotlights
Fifty cards: in the central area 34 x 34 cm each, at the extremities 28 x 28 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Private collection, Rome
A multitude of bright blue pieces of cardstock, studded with golden clips that hold small fragments of reproductions of stellar cards and of previous works by the artist, are scattered across the ceiling to simulate the view of the firmament. Towards the outer part of the visual field they gradually thin out, and at the two ends of the area they are reduced to a format that complies with the perspectival view; the cards along the edges are trimmed as well, in order to suggest a hypothetical continuum. At the centre, a nylon thread fastened to the ceiling between a black men's shoe and a white ballerina's scarf – arranged so that they point in opposite directions – holds a music stand hanging in the void.
Four spotlights located in the corners of the darkened room turned upwards illuminate the scene that, as the title tells us, draws the public's attention to an exceptional event: an acrobatic number, the height of the spectacle, a moment of magical suspension.
| 1988 | Naples, Museo di Capodimonte, Giulio Paolini. Signore e signori..., 15 May - 30 June, not repr., referred to in the text by B. Corà p. 12. |
| 2004-06 | Naples, Palazzo Taverna, Incontri Internazionali d’Arte, Sala di lettura della Biblioteca, Giulio Paolini. Signore e Signori..., 1988-2004, 25 November 2004 - January 2006, no catalogue. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2001), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 618 p. 634. |
| • | F. Poli, Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), repr. no. 164 (detail). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Il “Teatro” dell’opera, exhibition catalogue, Pesaro, Galleria Franca Mancini (Ravenna: Agenzia Editoriale Essegi, 1991), repr. p. 42. |
| • | A. Zevi, “Giulio Paolini: Le repliche del naufragio / The replicas of the shipwreck”, in L’Architettura 37, no. 433 (Rome), November, 1991, p. 907, repr. p. 909. |
| • | Oltre la linea dell’avanguardia. Architettura, testo, contesto, edited by E. Calvi (Milan: Guerini Studio, 1992), repr. p. 29. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), repr. p. 283. |
| • | Museo nazionale di Capodimonte. Arte contemporanea, edited by A. Tecce (Naples: Electa, 2002), p. 28, repr. p. 43. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), p. 408, not repr. |
| • | A. Tecce, “‘La purezza della vita è l’arte più alta e vera’ (gandhi)”, in Kiefer e Paolini: ritorno a Capodimonte, exhibition catalogue, Naples, Museo di Capodimonte (Naples: Electa Napoli, 2006), p. 18, repr. p. 32. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 618 pp. 634-635, repr. and col. repr. |
| • | Omaggio a Graziella Lonardi Buontempo. Tutta la vita per l’arte, edited by C. Casorati and D. Lancioni, exhibition catalogue, Naples, PAN Palazzo della Arti (Rome: Edizioni Incontri Internazionali d’Arte, 2011), p. 122, col. repr. p. 57 (exhibition view Rome 2004). |
