Don Giovanni nel deserto, 1992
GPO-0699
Don Giovanni in the Desert
Collage of photographic reproductions, plexiglas sheet, clip-on spotlights
Dismantled work
A torn photographic reproduction of Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (1445-48) by Domenico Veneziano is held in between two plexiglas sheets by way of two clip-on spotlights clamped to the sides, and turned towards the centre. The image is almost completely hidden by the four reproductions of other lit reflectors, which allow the viewer to glimpse only one detail of the fifteenth-century figure, as if the remaining portion had been burnt by the light.
The same theme was developed in a variant from the same year (GPO-0699) and it also corresponds to a first formulation conceived in 1990 (GPO-0664).
Domenico Veneziano, San Giovanni Battista nel deserto, 1445-50, oil on wood, 28.4 × 31.8 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
| 1992 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Giulio Paolini, 28 November - 24 December. |
| • | M. Bouisset, Arte Povera (Paris: Éditions du Regard, 1994), repr. p. 110 (exhibition view Paris 1992). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 699 p. 714, not repr. |
