La Fortuna è cieca, 1984
GPO-0532
Fortune is Blind
Pencil, red pencil and collage on paper
Nine framed parts 40 x 60 cm each, overall dimensions 123 x 183 cm
Private collection, Pescara
The diagonals made in red pencil that square the assemblage of nine elements placed at short intervals intersect the eye of the figure in the middle, thereby delimiting its visual field saturated with fragments of images of previous works by the artist. At the same time the diagonals serve as the vanishing lines of the perspective in which the two symmetrical valets are inserted, each of them holding down an empty rectangle.
In the artist’s own words: “The painting alludes to the condition of the author blinded by his attitudes and his patrimony of intentions, the prisoner of a 'before' and separated from an 'after' made up of the absolute of the work, placed at a distance, beyond his hand and his gaze".1
1 G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 532 p. 544.
Figure from Antonio Sandre, Il costume nei tempi (Turin: Scuola Taglio Moderno, 1961), p. 268, fig. 299 (”Da ‘Minister’s Gazette of fashions’, 1925-30”), with the transformation of the original jacket into a tailcoat.
| 1985 | Rome, Galleria Pieroni, Giulio Paolini. Giochi d’acqua, from 15 February. |
| 1985 | Nice, Centre National d’Art Contemporain Villa Arson, L’Italie aujourd’hui. Regards sur la peinture italienne de 1970 à 1985 / Italia oggi. Sguardi sulla pittura italiana dal 1970 al 1985, 14 June - 14 October, repr. no. 55 p. 51. |
| • | G. Paolini in conversation with M. Disch (2004), in M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 532 p. 544. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 532 p. 544, repr. |
| • | In viaggio per l’arte. La Galleria Pieroni 1975-1992, exhibition catalogue, Rome, MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (Rome: Quodlibet Edizioni, 2025), repr. p. 63 (exhibition view Rome 1985). |
