Table d’orientation, 1990
GPO-0671
Collage, pencil on paper, plexiglas sheet, stamp magnifying lens
Plexiglas sheet 50 x 50 cm
Present whereabouts unknown
Two photographic reproductions, each of which applied to the centre of a sheet of drawing paper, represent the painting in colour of Télémaque et Eucharis (1818) by Jacques Louis David, and – framed by a drawn rectangle of the same size as the reproduction of the painting by David – the French painter's palette, framed as though it were a trophy and decorated with several paintbrushes and a medal. On these two sheets that are staggered and held down by a plexiglas sheet, a philatelist's magnifying glass, placed in a central position so that it coincides with the point of contact between the two photographic reproductions, is meant to indicate the search for the enigmatic instant or "moment of truth" when the passage from the palette to the finished painting occurs. Hence, the image of an "orientation table" evoked in the title.
• Jacques-Louis David, Les Adieux de Télémaque et d’Eucharis, 1818, oil on canvas, 87.2 x 103 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
• Palette du peintre Jacques-Louis David, in mahogany, accompanied by eleven paintbrushes, a spatula, a brass charcoal holder, a double shot glass in metal, and the painter’s Legion of Honor, in an oval frame with convex glass, 50 x 42.5 x 10 cm, private collection.
| 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. 4 p. 17, repr. pp. 21 (exhibition view), 29. |
| • | M. Bertoni, “Giulio Paolini. Dove Vedo”, in Critica e Documentazione 7, supplement to the bimonthly journal Segno 132 (Pescara), April, 1994, repr. pp. 28-29 (exhibition view Bologna 1990). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 671 p. 684, col. repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. p. 211 (exhibition view Bologna 1990). |
