Giulio Paolini / Aula di disegno (Happy Days)
An impetus for realizing this important work in Zurich was the ideal architectural disposition of the gallery, with its four symmetrical rooms. In addition, the work is a cache of many themes and formulations that have occupied the artist since the 1960s. It becomes evident where they have their origin, where they are conjoined, entwined, accumulated. A significant particularity of "Aula di disegno" that can explain the curious "Happy Days" set in parentheses was certainly an additional and pivotal factor for Giulio Paolini in choosing to mount precisely this installation in our gallery spaces at this point in time. A mysterious detail of a "disegno" is placed in the focus of the installation. It is a cutout from a small drawing by Sol LeWitt on the back of a postcard greeting to Giulio "Happy Days in '06, Sol". A touching personal grounding, which loses its anecdotal connotation in the context of the work and becomes meaningful on many levels. With the "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art" in 1967, Sol LeWitt clearly and concisely outlined new foundations of artistic works. The consequences and effects of these groundbreaking strategies remain virulent today, though unfortunately often in banalized form. While Sol LeWitt broke with tradition and wanted to open up a free range for the unfolding of unforeseeable new forms and pathways, Giulio Paolini also initiated a subtle and precise mode of conceptual thinking and working. To the present day, his entire oeuvre traces back to "Disegno Geometrico" from 1960. His approach manifestly takes up the great tradition of the "disegno", which had its origin and reached its utmost development in the Latin cultural area.
It is worth noting that Paolini had his inaugural solo exhibition at Galerie Verna in 1973 followed by the gallery’s first one-man show of LeWitt in 1975. A triangular constellation marked by friendship and mutual esteem.
Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) describes "disegno" as the "active creative principle in the visual arts". And "disegno" designates a key function in the interplay of the arts. The primacy of drawing – "primato del disegno" – shaped Italian art theory since the Renaissance. Now Paolini is in no way interested in simply linking to these theories and treatises. His achievement consists in transforming the traditions and using them as aggregates for a contemporary pictorial language capable of calculating its relevance in carefully reflected measures of value. In Italian, "disegno" has a variety of meanings: the art of drawing, the work of drawing itself, design, plan and idea. Through the "disegno", the conceived attains its vividness.
Yet the auditorium into which the gallery has been transformed does not have an educational function. For only art teaches art. In its centre, works by Paolini have therefore been spread out, from 1969 to 2009. The notion that art always refers to art, as well as the following thesis, can be taken today as a provocation worthy of consideration. The artist is necessarily an artistic figure and his name solely a reverberation in the echo chamber of the art system. He only attains identity through what he manages to bring in with his inventions.
Installation views
Installation view
room 4
Installation view
room 1
Installation view
room 1
Installation view
room 1
Installation view
room 1
Installation view
room 2-1
Installation view
room 2
Installation view
room 3-2-1
Installation view
room 3
Installation view
room 4
Installation view
office
Installation view
office
Works
Studio per "Aula di disegno"
2005
30 x 42 cm
Ink and collage on graph paper
Studio per "Aula di disegno"
2005
30 x 42 cm
Ink and collage on graph paper
Studio per "Aula di disegno"
2005
30 x 42 cm
Ink and collage on graph paper
Senza titolo
(dalle Œuvres Complètes)
1994
70 x 100 cm
Color pencil and collage on paper
Senza titolo
(dalle Œuvres Complètes)
1994
70 x 100 cm
Color pencil and collage on paper
Il Disegno in persona
1998
125 x 125 cm
Pencil on paper, framed in a black passepartout, framed in a photographic passepartout, collage on the wall
Prologo
1993
50 x 70 cm
Pencil, colored pencil, and collage on paper
L’ombra del vuoto
2009
80 x 80 cm
Collage on paper
L’ombra del vuoto
2009
80 x 80 cm
Collage on paper
Il rosso e il nero
2006
50 x 70 cm
Color pencil, pencil, and collage on paper
Da "Lezione di pittura"
2009
40 x 30 cm
Gold-plated frame, pencil and collage on paper and on the wall
Senza titolo
2008 -2009
50 x 50 cm
Pencil and collage on paper and acrylic glass
Passe-partout
2005
60 x 80 cm
Color pencil and pencil on photographic reproduction
Quadri di un’esposizione
2002
60 x 80 cm
Pencil and collage on paper
Ennesima (Appunti per la descrizione di dodici disegni datati 1975-88)
1988
Photo prints, 12 parts,
each: 32 x 23 cm
Ennesima (Appunti per la descrizione di dodici disegni datati 1975-88)
1988
Photo prints, 12 parts,
each: 32 x 23 cm
detail
Ennesima (Appunti per la descrizione di dodici disegni datati 1975-88)
1988
Photo prints, 12 parts,
each: 32 x 23 cm
detail
Ennesima (Appunti per la descrizione di dodici disegni datati 1975-88)
1988
Photo prints, 12 parts,
each: 32 x 23 cm
detail
Da "Vedo (La decifrazione del mio campo visivo)"
1969
75 x 75 cm
Photograph and pencil on paper
Studio per "Dopo tutto"
2009
50 x 70 cm
Photograph, color pencil and collage on paper
Studio per
"Immacolata Concezione"
2008
70 x 50 cm
Pencil and collage on paper
L’asse di squilibrio
1994 -2009
70 x 100 cm
Color pencil, pencil and collage on paper and acrylic glass
Senza titolo
(Studio per Autoritratto)
2008 -2009
64 x 48 cm
Color pencil, pencil, and collage on paper
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
(della serie dei "Disegni")
1964
Dimensions variable
Paper on a acrylic glass cube
Senza titolo
1998 - 2009
70 x 100 cm
Pencil and collage on paper and on the wall
Niente e subito
2006
120 x 40 x 40 cm
Plexiglas base, drawing paper, black pencil
Ed. 4 of 6
Niente e subito
2006
120 x 40 x 40 cm
Plexiglas base, drawing paper, black pencil
Ed. 4 of 6
Niente e subito
2006
120 x 40 x 40 cm
Plexiglas base, drawing paper, black pencil
Ed. 4 of 6
Niente e subito
2006
120 x 40 x 40 cm
Plexiglas base, drawing paper, black pencil
Ed. 4 of 6
Senza titolo
1998 - 2009
70 x 100 cm
Collage on paper and
acrylic glass
Aula di disegno
(Happy Days)
2006
Dimensions variable
Photograph, digital print, acrylic glass plate, black pencil, pencil and collage on the wall
Aula di disegno
(Happy Days)
2006
Dimensions variable
Photograph, digital print, acrylic glass plate, black pencil, pencil and collage on the wall
Aula di disegno
(Happy Days)
2006
Dimensions variable
Photograph, digital print, acrylic glass plate, black pencil, pencil and collage on the wall
Aula di disegno
(Happy Days)
2006
Dimensions variable
Photograph, digital print, acrylic glass plate, black pencil, pencil and collage on the wall
New
Exhibition
Dan Flavin (1933–1996) and Will Insley (1929–2011)
March 6 to April 26, 2024
New publications
James Bishop
James Bishop
Publisher: ER Publishing, Edited by Molly Warnock
Joseph Egan
Joseph Egan and Anton Himstedt: Common Ground
Publisher: Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop, Ulrike Growe
Exhibitions / Insight
INSIGHT #3 spotlights the graphic work of Fred Sandback through three examples from 1974 and 1982.
Joseph Egan, Ptolemäus: Die Welt im Griff? Antike Kartographie und zeitgenössische Kunst, Kunsthaus Grenchen
3. März bis 26. Mai 2024
Dan Flavin, Widmungen aus Licht, Kunstmuseum Basel
2. März bis 18. August 2024
Rita McBride, Momentum,
Dia Beacon, Beacon, NY,
July 1, 2023 to January 2025
Fred Sandback, Kurt Büsser ermöglicht... Erich Buchholz und Fred Sandback, Museum Wiesbaden
19. Januar bis 14. April 2024
Sol LeWitt (1928–2007)
A Wall Drawing Retrospective
Yale University Art Gallery and Williams College Museum of Art
November 16, 2008 – 2033
Annemarie Verna Gallery | Neptunstrasse 42 | 8032 Zurich | Switzerland | Phone +41 44 262 3820 | Fax +41 44 262 3826 |
