On January 28, 2017, on the occasion of the inauguration of the 2016-2017 Academic Year, the artist Giulio Paolini will be awarded the Honoris Causa Diploma in Painting at the Accademia Albertina of Fine Arts, Turin, Italy.
Paolini will also be delivering a Lectio Magistralis on the same day.
On 10 November 1966, Ms. Margherita von Stein opened a new gallery at Via Teofilo Rossi 3 in Turin with a solo show by Aldo Mondino. Christian Stein was the “nom de plume” chosen by Margherita von Stein for herself and for her Gallery, which was to become a benchmark on the international scene for the Arte Povera movement.
On November 10 – five decades and over 250 exhibitions later, the Gallery in Turin having been closed while the two venues in Milan continue their activity – Galleria Christian Stein is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with two exhibitions curated by Bettina Della Casa dedicated to Giulio Paolini in the spaces of Corso Monforte 23, in the heart of the city, and at Via Vincenzo Monti 46 in Pero, outside Milan.
In the gallery’s Corso Monforte location the new work Fine (2016) offers, by way of multiple citations and cross-references, a metaphorical summa of Giulio Paolini’s vision of art.
On display in the gallery’s spacious Pero location is a selection of eighteen works dated from 1972 to the present, some of which have only rarely been exhibited, and three of which are new.
Giulio Paolini (Genoa, 1940), a leading figure in Conceptual art, exhibited his work for the first time in Via Teofilo Rossi in Turin in 1967, and later, on various other occasions, at the gallery’s new address in Piazza San Carlo. Over the years, he has kept close ties with Galleria Christian Stein, now directed by Gianfranco Benedetti who, from 1971, worked with Ms. Stein until she passed away in 2003.
These two exhibitions mark the most important stages in the artistic evolution of Paolini, who has personally chosen a series of historic works that converse with three hitherto unseen interventions. This “conversation” comprises six sections corresponding to six of the gallery’s rooms.
Paolini’s plaster casts titled Mimesis from the 1970s (1976-88) are described by the artist himself as “two identical copies, placed one opposite the other, of an antique sculpture, the intention being to capture the distance that separates them and the void that the work creates around itself, taking away from us the right to possess its impenetrable gaze”.
Nancy Olnick with Paolini’s Mimesis and Intervallo (Lottatori)
An example of the artist’s research in the 1990s is the work “Hic et nunc (Le Radeau de la Méduse)” (1991), which evokes, in metaphorical terms, the scene represented in the painting by Géricault “The Raft of the Medusa”, and suggests with dramatic emphasis the unstable equilibrium that presides over the accomplishment of the vision. In this display, as is often the case with Paolini’s installations, one hears the echoes of past artists assumed as vital and irreplaceable elements of the work’s becoming: a “theatre” of timeless representations, always loyal to itself and yet renewed each and every time.
In the historic hall in Palazzo Cicogna, in Corso Monforte, Paolini presents a single large-scale installation entitled “Fine”, made specially for this occasion: a complex and elaborate work that tends to trace over the whole creative experience of the artist in a symbolic “voyage home”. It is by way of an overt reference to Jean-Antoine Watteau and his painting ”L’embarquement pour Cythère” (1717) that Paolini stages a sort of large raft that hosts a variety of objects, all of which coming from the artist’s studio, works, or ordinary tools.
A text by Paolini welcomes visitors and introduces them to an interpretation of the exhibition.
For more in-depth information about Giulio Paolini and a list of his exhibitions:
Fine will be on view until April 29, 2017.
More information about Fine can be found here
Galleria Christian Stein
Milan, Corso Monforte 23 / Pero (Milan), Via Vincenzo Monti 46
www.galleriachristianstein.com
Opening night of Giulio Paolini’s exhibition at Galleria Christian Stein
From right to left (front row): Silvia Fabro, Bruno Corà, Germano Celant, Giorgio Spanu
From right to left (back row): Michelangelo Pistoletto, Nancy Olnick, Domenico Bianchi, Giulio Paolini, Bettina Della Casa, Gianfranco Benedetti, Danna Olgiati, Barbara Maccaferri, Giancarlo Olgiati, Lia Riva Ferrarese, Eduardo Cicelyn
Opening night of Giulio Paolini’s exhibition at Galleria Christian Stein
From right to left (front row): Argento Celant, Giancarlo Olgiati, Barbara Maccaferri, Giorgio Spanu, Paolo Canevari, Bettina Della Casa, Patrizia Pisani
From right to left (back row): Roberto Lombardi, Remo Salvadori, Germano Celant, Marco Bagnoli, Giulio Paolini, Nancy Olnick, Danna Olgiati, Eduardo Cicelyn, Rosella Nesi, Domenico Bianchi, Daniela Morera, Paris Murray, Peter Wuethrich