Endimione dormiente, 1990
GPO-0660
Sleeping Endymion
Plexiglas sheets, torn photo print, collage on plexiglas
Five plexiglas sheets 70 x 50 cm each, overall dimensions 70 x 70 cm
Private collection
The work should be set up on the ground atop a white platform (or one that is neutral in colour with respect to the floor) featuring a height of about 30 cm.
Sleeping Endymion (1819-22) by Antonio Canova, reproduced in the black and white photograph that is torn along the bottom, lies in precarious balance on the first two of five overlapping plexiglas sheets in a row (the first three are oriented vertically, the following ones horizontally). Two other fragments torn from the same image are held down – one from the recto the other from the verso – between the posterior sheets below, like two fallen flaps.
The photograph, its tearing, and the fragments all harken back to the very concept of reproduction and representation, meaning the evocation of something – a model, an original, an absolute – that cannot be reproduced except through an image.
The same theme was developed in two previous variants, made in 1980 (GPO-0431) and in 1981 (GPO-0449), respectively.
Antonio Canova, Endimione dormiente, 1819-22, marble, 93 x 185 cm, Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth House, Bakewell.
| 1990 | Bologna, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Villa delle Rose, Giulio Paolini. Hotel de l’Univers, 27 May - 29 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 16 p. 17 (erroneously dated “1980”), repr. pp. 61, 65 and on cover (exhibition views). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 660 p. 676, repr. (exhibition view Bologna 1990). |
