Giulio Paolini – Dilemma

One of his first significant works is the 1960 Geometric Design: a canvas on which he completed only a preliminary procedure, which is to say the geometric squaring, the anticipation of all possible representations. Paolini’s works are always centred on the specific themes of art and are progressively inherent to increasingly more vast spheres which subtract uniqueness from the work while giving it the possibility to allude to infinite possible existences. A range of the instruments, of the techniques of painting and of drawing from 1960 to 1964 appear in the paintings (tins of paint, brushes, canvases, preparation of the canvas, grids). His works often reintroduce the image of themselves into the space which hosts them. Reflections on the concept of actions are generally obtained from textual grafts: works reproduced in photographs, paintings of other artists, plaster casts, ancient prints and literary extracts. While in the projects for exhibitions he analyses the relationship between the works and the exhibition area or the way the spectator behaves in this area, as in the installation he created specifically for the Madre.