L’Indifférent, 1992
GPO-0691
Framed colour photo print with cut-outs, easel, wooden frames, transparent plexiglas sheet, reflecting plexiglas sheet
Framed photo print 120 x 90 cm, three wooden frames: 127 x 97 cm, 105 x 76 cm, 73 x 53 cm, reflecting plexiglas sheet 120 x 90 cm, transparent plexiglas sheet 180 x 130 cm, overall dimensions 230 x 180 x 130 cm
Private collection
The framed photograph is double: the one on the front is straight, while the one on the back is upside down. In the correct installation of the work – the only one foreseen by the artist – the cut-out to the right is lower down with respect to the hand (it must not seem as though it were being held down by the latter).
The easel must be straight, with no tilting.
The colour photograph that reproduces L’Indifférent (1717) by Jean-Antoine Watteau is framed between two sheets of glass so that the three cuts made in the photograph allow for a glimpse of the back of the easel it is placed on. Two wooden frames are held in a tilted position inserted in the pole of the easel, while a third frame is set down on the ground up against the photograph. The ensemble is placed on a reflecting plexiglas sheet, which in turn is arranged so that it is staggered on the larger plexiglas sheet.
The figure of the Indifférent is borrowed in order to recall an actor-artificer busy doing magic tricks: with the complicity of the transparencies and the reflections, the figure seems to play the part of a juggler, causing the frames to rotate and acting as a pivot for the ensemble composed in precarious balance.
The work is one of three variants on the same theme, which began in 1988 (cf. GPO-0617, GPO-0619).
Jean-Antoine Watteau, L’Indifférent, 1716, oil on wood, 25 x 19 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris; reproduction from L’opera completa di Watteau. Classici dell’arte 21 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1968), plate XI.
| 1992 | Naples, Galleria Lucio Amelio, Giulio Paolini. La Commedia dell’Arte, from 31 January. |
| 2013-14 | Santa Barbara, California, Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Impulse and Connoisseurship: Selections from the Forde Collection, 3 December 2013 - 1 February 2014, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 105, col. repr. p. 77 (exhibition view Naples 1992), entry by A. Paulsen pp. 76, 78. |
| 2016 | London, Cardi Gallery, Arte Povera, American Minimalism, ZERO Group, 30 September - 22 December. |
| 2018 | Milan, Galleria Fumagalli, Giulio Paolini. Teoria delle apparenze. Opere 1969-2015, 16 January - 14 April, col. repr. pp. 4, 16, 38, 46-47, 51, 66-67, 70-73 (exhibition views), referred to in texts by A. Madesani p. 13, A. Maggi p. 24. |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Highlights from the Collection, 20 June - 7 September. |
| 2018 | London, Cardi Gallery, Highlights from the Collection, 2 October - 14 December. |
| • | Che cosa sia la bellezza non so, edited by E. Bonuomo and E. Cicelyn (Milan: Leonardo Editore, 1992), repr. p. 94. |
| • | Inside Out – Museo Città Eventi, exhibition catalogue, Prato, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Milan: Edizioni Charta, 1993), col. repr. p. 51. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 691 p. 705, col. repr. |
| • | Claudio Abate. Un progetto di Germano Celant (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2023), p. 305 (referred to in the text by I. Bernardi), col. repr. no. 435 p. 317 (exhibition view Naples 1992). |
