Castelli di carte, 1994
GPO-0722
House of Cards
Collage on green tempera card stock
Ten framed parts 40 x 40 cm each, overall dimensions 164 x 164 cm
Private collection, Genoa
The eight collages on green cardstock arranged at short intervals so that they form a pyramid – a castle of cards as the title tells us – each present a different arrangement of red playing cards, some of which seen from the back, others from the front. Strewn about in between the cards – of the same format as the playing cards – is a photographic reproduction in blue tone of a painting by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (Le château de cartes, ca. 1737), in which a young man amuses himself by building castles of cards on a green game table.
Whereas the reference to Chardin evokes the genre of the vanitas, the card player is an implicit stand-in for the author, who on his own work table is constantly shuffling his cards, aware that every new configuration is a relative episode with respect to the "absolute" work that escapes every attempt at appropriation.
The same theme was developed in an earlier variant, made in 1993 (GPO-0711) and in a later one, made in 1995 (GPO-0766).
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon-Chardin, Le château de cartes, c. 1737, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
| 1994 | Genoa, Galleria Locus Solus, Giulio Paolini. Locus Solus, from 28 January, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. D4 p. 73, col. repr. p. 33. |
| • | F. Pasini, “Giulio Paolini. Una mostra lunga un anno”, in Flash Art 184 (Milan, Italian edition), May, 1994, col. repr. p. 24. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), col. repr. p. 316. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 722 p. 737, col. repr. |
