L’isola dei morti, 2006
GPO-0936
Isle of the Dead
Plexiglas cases with collage of photographic fragments, collage on wall
Twelve plexiglas cases 75 x 100 cm each, overall dimensions 306 x 304 cm
Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli-Turin, on loan from Private collection Turin
• 2006, Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert: the installation of the work was integrated to the left and to the right by a wall drawing, alluding to the potential continuation of the grid of cases; disseminated here and there in these squares that opened outwards were photographic fragments taken from Le radeau de la Méduse by Géricault (the fragments corresponding to the upper half were details of the sky).
• 2016, Torre Pellice, Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea: the artist omitted the drawing and the collage on the wall.
Twelve plexiglas cases are placed at short intervals so as to form a large square. The blue cases in the two upper rows recall the sky, while the grey-green cases in the bottom two rows recall the sea. The case located at the viewer’s eye level features at the centre an oval cut-out, which lets us glimpse the wall underneath. The cut-out is circumscribed by various images: an ancient colonnade, which slightly overlaps the oval to the left, while to the right it is upside down; the Funerary Genius from the Funeral Monument of Clemente XIII (1787-92) by Antonio Canova (top), reclining against the background of cypresses from the Isle of the Dead (1880) by Arnold Böcklin; a figure borrowed from The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19) by Théodore Géricault (bottom), who clings to the oval with its arm outstretched. The grey-green cases host other torn fragments from the reproduction of Géricault’s painting, scattered progressively outwards.
The images that in a gloomy atmosphere become thicker on the shores of the empty oval – which recalls both an island and a palette – turn one’s gaze towards a vanishing point and light that is still unknown, suspended between the risk of drowning and the promise of new horizons.
• Antonio Canova, Genio funebre from the Sepolcro di Clemente XIII, 1787-92, marble, 820 x 630 x 254 cm, Basilica di San Pietro, Rome; reproduction from L’opera completa di Canova. Classici dell’arte 213 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1976), plate XI.
• Arnold Böcklin, Die Toteninsel, 1880, oil on canvas, 111 x 155 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel.
• Jean-Louis-Théodore Géricault, Le Radeau de la Méduse, 1819, oil on canvas, 491 × 716 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
| 2006-07 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, L’autore sconosciuto (The Unknown Artist – L’auteur inconnu). Giulio Paolini, 14 December 2006 - 27 January 2007. |
| 2016 | Torre Pellice, Tucci Russo Studio per l’Arte Contemporanea, selected works by the artists represented by the gallery, from 8 May. |
| 2017 | Rivoli, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea and Turin and Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Colori. L’emozione dei colori nell’arte, 14 March - 23 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 320, not repr.; exhibited at Castello di Rivoli. |
| • | A. Bellini, “Giulio Paolini. A Normal Life”, in Flash Art 40, no. 225 (Milan, international edition), July-September, 2007, col. repr. p. 117 (exhibition view Paris 2006). |
| • | R. Shama, “Le silence avant la création”, in Icôn 10 (Lausanne), Summer, 2007, col. repr. p. 103 (exhibition view Paris 2006). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. pp. 252-253 (exhibition view Paris 2006). |
