Dilemma, 1995-96
GPO-0773
Pencil on primed canvas, on reversed canvas and on wall
Thirty primed canvases 70 x 70 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Private collection, Lecco
The ensemble of eighteen episodes making up the exhibition presented in a private space in Lecco – it continues in a sequence along the four sides of a long room – was acquired by the family of the promoters of the exhibition and was divided into three inseparable parts. The single unnumbered episodes are designated here based on their succession in the original exhibition project in order to facilitate their recognition.
1. Elements 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 17, 18
2. Elements 2, 3, 4, 10, 13, 14
3. Elements 9, 11, 15, 16
• 1996, Lecco, Quadreria Eusider: to complete this work, on each moulding at the centre of the room, Paolini exhibited fifteen empty frames, propped up so that they were staggered against the relative glass sheets. On the entrance side the frames were coloured and placed at linear intervals according to the succession of the spectrum, while on the opposite side they were gilt and arranged according to a gradual scattering outwards. By crowning the compositions of the canvases – the artist declared in a conversation with Maddalena Disch – the two friezes conferred the dignity of the "work" to the sampling of "exercises". Both friezes were taken apart at the end of the exhibition
Thirty canvases placed closed together or overlapping in a straight or tilted position, viewed from the recto or the verso and almost always matched with a drawing of squares on the canvases themselves or on the wall, offer eighteen different ways to combine and multiply a modular element. These endlessly postpone the definition of "one" painting, in favour of a potentially unlimited number of hypotheses. In this sense, the series of "trials" alludes to the artist's "dilemma" whenever he finds himself before a blank canvas or sheet of drawing paper, forced to come to terms with the countless ways of organizing the basic units of his repertoire.
| 1996 | Malgrate, Quadreria Eusider, Giulio Paolini. Dilemma, from 20 January, repr. pp. 4-11 (exhibition views), text by T. Lorenzelli p. 3. |
| • | XLVII Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, exhibition catalogue, Venice, La Biennale di Venezia (Milan: Electa, 1997), vol. Futuro Presente Passato, col. repr. pp. 502-503. |
| • | M. Disch, “Le sette stanze dell’esposizione. L’opera delle opere,” in Giulio Paolini. Premio Internazionale Koinè 2000 alla carriera, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Palazzo Forti (Milan: Electa, 2001), pp. 60, 66 endnote 3, repr. p. 60. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 773 pp. 786-787, col. repr. (exhibition view Lecco 1996), and b/w repr. (single elements). |
| • | M. Disch, “Postfazione”, in B. Satre, Giulio Paolini. Essere o non essere, 1994-95. In collezione 1 (Turin-Mantua: Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and Corraini Edizioni, 2014), p. 66, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Del Bello ideale, exhibition catalogue, Milan, Fondazione Carriero (London: Koenig Books, 2019), repr. vol. 2 p. 83 (during the installation of the work, Malgrate 1996, detail). |
