La pittura abbandonata, 1985
GPO-0561
Painting Abandoned
Projection on wall, stretcher, unstretched primed canvas
Stretcher 125 x 208 cm, canvas 105 x 500 cm, overall dimensions variable
Collection of the artist
The image projected on the wall is that of the cut out and upside down figure of Sleeping Ariadne on the shores of Lake Nemi shaped like a palette. A large stretcher with one corner touching the ground is placed against the wall so that it appears to be held up by Ariadne's arm. A long primed canvas, wrapped around the upper end of the stretcher and falling down to the ground evokes an "abandoned" painting.
“Vision” that is betrayed (like Ariadne while sleeping, according to the famous Greek myth of Ariadne and Theseus) is none other than the umpteenth attempt – amidst endless others to come – to grasp that model that time after time the author attempts to shape.1
1 Cf. to this regard Paolini's statements in his conversation with B. Corà, T. Trini, and S. Vertone at the Libreria Einaudi in Milan on 14 October 1985, published under the title “La pittura abbandonata” in G. Paolini, Ancora un libro, I libri di A.E.I.U.O. (Rome: Editrice Inonia, 1987), p. 57.
• Landscape: Fratelli Alinari, Nemi – Prov. di Roma. Panorama del Lago e della piccola borgata di Genzano, c. 1890, albumen silver print, 21 x 27 cm, Archivi Alinari, Florence (ACA-F-006861-0000).
- Figure: Sleeping Ariadne, 1st-2nd century AD Roman copy of a Hellenistic original, marble, 161 cm, Musei Vaticani, Rome; reproduction from Francis Haskell, Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), p. 185, fig. 96 (“Cleopatra”).
| 1985 | Bari, Galleria Marilena Bonomo, Giulio Paolini. La pittura abbandonata, from 7 December. |
| 1986 | Oslo, Kunstnernes Hus, Fra usikkerhet til samlet Kraft..., 26 April - 8 June, in the main catalogue: not repr.; in the monographic volume Giulio Paolini. La pittura abbandonata: repr. n. pag. |
| 2022 | Florence, Museo Novecento, Giulio Paolini. Quando è il presente?, 18 March - 7 September, col. repr. no. 15 pp. 34-35, 150-151 (exhibition views), entry by B. Della Casa and M. Disch p. 125, referred to in the text by E. Francioli pp. 87-89. |
| • | Italiana 1950 1986, exhibition catalogue, Sala de Exposiciones del Ayuntamiento de Valencia (Gandía: Edizioni Cimal Internacional, 1986), repr. p. 75 (exhibition view Bari 1985). |
| • | G. Paolini, Suspense. Breve storia del vuoto in tredici stanze (Florence: Hopeful Monster editore, 1988), repr. pp. 212-213 (exhibition view Bari 1985). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 561 p. 571, col. repr. (exhibition view Bari 1985). |
| • | P. Repetto, “Oltre il visibile”, in Giulio Paolini. O.D.E., exhibition catalogue, Monforte d’Alba (Cuneo), Castello di Perno (Alba: Fondazione Mancini Carini, 2022), p. 42, col. repr. p. 49 no. 20. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. p. 299 (exhibition view Florence 2022). |
