La casa brucia, 1987
GPO-0609
The House is Burning
Collage on paper
Twenty-four parts 40 x 30 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Dismantled work
• 1987, Nantes, Museé des Beaux-Arts: the elements are arranged at great intervals in two horizontal rows.
• 1988, Rome, GNAM: the elements are arranged at short intervals so as to form a frieze along the upper part of the wall.
Each of the twenty-four framed elements – either placed at short intervals or scattered on the wall – offers the same photographic collage of the torn colour details of a building on fire. Each time, the image in the background is partially covered by torn fragments of black and white reproductions of previous solo exhibitions.
In the artist's intentions, the details of his own past exhibitions against a background on fire represent visions that were already consumed, and at the same time the clues of a "fire" that is never extinguished.
| 1987 | Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Giulio Paolini, 16 October - 15 December, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 4 p. 67, col. repr. pp. 30, 45, 46 (details). |
| 1988-89 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Giulio Paolini, 24 November 1988 - 26 February 1989, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 95, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 609 p. 625, col. repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), repr. p. 207 (exhibition view Rome 1988, detail). |
