Synopsis, 1998
GPO-0801
Canvases mounted one on top of the other and fixed to a photo print framed in plexiglas case, primed canvases
Photo print 100 x 140 cm, eighteen canvases 20 x 20 cm each, overall dimensions 185 x 225 cm
The Margulies Collection, Miami
A photograph of the artist's studio is associated with an ensemble of small primed canvases, some of which arranged outside and others inside the image to form two "frames". The outer frame is made up of eighteen canvases seen alternatively from the recto and the verso, each time rotated with respect to the next one, while at the centre of the image, in the area corresponding to the easel, three canvases are mounted on top of each other, staggered by 45 degrees, to form a star.
The synopsis mentioned in the title is the compendium of distinct situations at both a spatial and a temporal level: on the one hand, the studio, "already" seen by the camera lens and absent with respect to the here-and-now of the exhibition, as the place of origin of the work we are looking at; on the other, the canvases that at the moment and in the place of the exhibition suggest a "painting" in progress, in search of its own definition.
The work was conceived as a pendant piece to its complementary version, which is distinguished for the different arrangement of the canvases and the fact that they represent both a certain point of view and its opposite (GPO-0800).
View of Giulio Paolini’s studio taken by Paolo Mussat Sartor, 1997.
| 1998 | Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum, Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, 4 April - 31 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 17 p. 181 (erroneously dated “1995-98”), not repr. |
| 1999 | Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, 8 May - 25 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 10 p. 37 (erroneously dated “1995-98”), col. repr. p. 104 (exhibition view). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 801 p. 821, col. repr. |
| • | R. Ferrario, Giulio Paolini. Un viaggio a distanza (Busto Arsizio: Nomos Edizioni, 2009), pp. 106, 113, not repr. |
| • | M. Maiorino, “The Archive and the Atelier, Almost a Hendiadys”, in Archivo Papers 5, online journal, 30 June 2025, p. 93, col. repr. p. 94. |
