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Lot Essay
From its very inception, the central preoccupation of Giulio Paolini's work has been with the phenomenon of seeing and the mystery of perception. Taking his cue from the autonomous self-assertion of Manzoni's Achromes and the timeless metaphysics of Giorgio de Chirico's his use of it as an autonomous and self-referential discipline, Paolini sought to create open-ended works that simultaneously investigate and express the strange nature of their own being. From his work with blank canvases and empty frames, to that with perspective or through actions such as the graphic mapping of the periphery of his own vision, Paolini's work explores the limits and borderlines of perception and representation.
Le tre grazie (The Three Graces) is a unique and important installation made in 1978 that is centred on the notion of time and how this effects the nature of perception and representation. The mythological three graces, Aglaia, Eurfosine and Talia, are an ancient classical symbol of artistic beauty. Here they are represented by three copies of ancient Greek statues - one made of plaster, the other two drawn on the walls. Each is also accompanied by a photographic representation of itself. The conjunction of plaster cast copy and photograph is a regular feature of Paolini's work as each is seen by him as and 'equivalent' form of reproduction or 'model' of an image which, 'even though (made) from different materials, (has) the same function -to produce a simulacrum.' A photograph and a plaster cast tend to give 'an absolute illusion of another thing', Paolini has said, 'but I have always been careful to reveal the material itself. In other words, a photograph is a skin, an intangible diaphragm which provides you with this miracle of representation of something. However, it is also a piece of paper. Similarly, a plaster cast can reproduce something which is in Greece. Yet, plaster is also a material you can touch and therefore when it breaks it is revealed for what it is. It becomes an image not of what it recounts but what it truly is.' (Guilio Paolini : Interview with Susan Taylor in The Print Collector's Newsletter no 5, New York, November/December 1984.)
Positioned across the viewing space in such a way that they seem to permeate the walls of the gallery space, Paolini's 'Three Graces' dissolve the conventional boundaries of perception. Representing past, present and future they also stand for the possibility - though partial and limited by mere fragments and models of images - of seeing through time. Past, and future are, of course, Paolini has pointed out with specific reference to this work, always implicated in the perception of the present. His use of repetition, reproduction, material and space in this work articulate this aspect of perception with regard to viewing both the work of art itself and how the work of art manifests, asserts and even, sees itself. For each of the three graces is engaged in a silent and mimetic contemplation of its own image establishing a three-way discourse with itself about the nature and progression of imagery through time and space.
'My whole oeuvre turns on an image,' Paolini has said, ' the image of our system of focusing (diaphragm) between the picture space and the object space; as in an ideal mirror, which reflects phenomena, but also lets us see that which constitutes it. The essence of this art tends towards a sort of paradoxical objectivity, because in the now, in the moment of perception, it introduces a temporary incompatibility; it compels a circular rather than a rectilinear reading and thus robs the manifest image of its evidence. All this up to the 'moment of truth', which always lies on the other side of each project. What remains is the pure presence (sublime or meaningless) of a work whose fate it is to widen the endless visionary series of discoveries that inspire the unfathomable path of art. The circular reading -there we have it -the most subtle strategy of modern art, which defines itself as art and also proceeds from the art itself.' (Giulio Paolini, cited in Giulio Paolini exh. cat. Museum of Modern art, Oxford, 1980, p. 4.)
Le tre grazie (The Three Graces) is a unique and important installation made in 1978 that is centred on the notion of time and how this effects the nature of perception and representation. The mythological three graces, Aglaia, Eurfosine and Talia, are an ancient classical symbol of artistic beauty. Here they are represented by three copies of ancient Greek statues - one made of plaster, the other two drawn on the walls. Each is also accompanied by a photographic representation of itself. The conjunction of plaster cast copy and photograph is a regular feature of Paolini's work as each is seen by him as and 'equivalent' form of reproduction or 'model' of an image which, 'even though (made) from different materials, (has) the same function -to produce a simulacrum.' A photograph and a plaster cast tend to give 'an absolute illusion of another thing', Paolini has said, 'but I have always been careful to reveal the material itself. In other words, a photograph is a skin, an intangible diaphragm which provides you with this miracle of representation of something. However, it is also a piece of paper. Similarly, a plaster cast can reproduce something which is in Greece. Yet, plaster is also a material you can touch and therefore when it breaks it is revealed for what it is. It becomes an image not of what it recounts but what it truly is.' (Guilio Paolini : Interview with Susan Taylor in The Print Collector's Newsletter no 5, New York, November/December 1984.)
Positioned across the viewing space in such a way that they seem to permeate the walls of the gallery space, Paolini's 'Three Graces' dissolve the conventional boundaries of perception. Representing past, present and future they also stand for the possibility - though partial and limited by mere fragments and models of images - of seeing through time. Past, and future are, of course, Paolini has pointed out with specific reference to this work, always implicated in the perception of the present. His use of repetition, reproduction, material and space in this work articulate this aspect of perception with regard to viewing both the work of art itself and how the work of art manifests, asserts and even, sees itself. For each of the three graces is engaged in a silent and mimetic contemplation of its own image establishing a three-way discourse with itself about the nature and progression of imagery through time and space.
'My whole oeuvre turns on an image,' Paolini has said, ' the image of our system of focusing (diaphragm) between the picture space and the object space; as in an ideal mirror, which reflects phenomena, but also lets us see that which constitutes it. The essence of this art tends towards a sort of paradoxical objectivity, because in the now, in the moment of perception, it introduces a temporary incompatibility; it compels a circular rather than a rectilinear reading and thus robs the manifest image of its evidence. All this up to the 'moment of truth', which always lies on the other side of each project. What remains is the pure presence (sublime or meaningless) of a work whose fate it is to widen the endless visionary series of discoveries that inspire the unfathomable path of art. The circular reading -there we have it -the most subtle strategy of modern art, which defines itself as art and also proceeds from the art itself.' (Giulio Paolini, cited in Giulio Paolini exh. cat. Museum of Modern art, Oxford, 1980, p. 4.)