La casa brucia, 1987-04

Forty-three framed elements arranged at short intervals from each other are divided into two distinct groups: one is compact and located at the centre, comprising fifteen units, and the other around the perimeter of the work, comprising twenty-eight elements that create a large frame. All of them show the same photomontage of a building and a landscape on fire, which each time is overlapped by the detail of another image. The elements in the group in the middle feature the inserted torn fragment of an exhibition view or of a previous work by the artist. In the elements in the perimetral group, the image of the fire features the insertion of work materials generally used by the artist (colour samples, various types of paper, photographic reproductions, a goniometer).1
As a whole, La casa brucia joins the echoes of completed (already “consumed”) works with the clues of works that are yet to come, announced by the preliminary materials. Both of them – says Paolini – are fueled by the same “fire”, one that is constantly lit, that brings the artist’s research to life.
The same theme was formulated in a first version made in 1987 (GPO-0609), consisting of only twenty-four elements in a single sequence and accompanied by insertions taken exclusively from black-and-white exhibition views.

1 At first, the work included forty-nine elements and it required a larger installation of the perimetral group along the sides of a wider wall. In 2020, because of the poor state of conservation of six of the elements, Paolini reduced the number of components and reconfigured the installation for a narrower wall, also modifying the order of succession of the elements.