The title Hypothesis for an Exhibition is a clear reference to Paolini’s 1963 work Ipotesi Per Una Mostra, which Giulio Paolini produced for his first exhibition for La Tortuga gallery in Rome but remained unrealized until his 2003 retrospective at the Fondazione Prada in Milan. In the first project Paolini imagined two publics – the real public and a metaphorical one, behind a glass.
Hypothesis for an Exhibition, currently on at Dominique Lévy gallery in New York, is comprised of two components – the first is an exhibition of work by Paolini and a dozen New York artists and collectives paying tribute to his ideas. The second component is a publication designed by Studio Manuel Raeder. In the exhibition Paolini’s works, especially of the 1960s and the 1970s, are in direct relation with works of a younger generation of artists based in New York today.
Giulio Paolini main belief has always been that a work of art doesn’t express his meaning and power just in a determinate time and space, here and now. He believes that a work of art is related to previous traditions, to the history of art itself. This is the reason why he always tried to look at the art of the past. It is not a mystery that in his production Paolini has been mostly inspired by the Renaissance artists.
The show in New York can be seen as a natural evolution of his idea. His works are now the basis for a new production. Therefore Hypothesis for an Exhibition can be considered a tribute to the conceptual Italian artist made by this group of young artists of the American art scene. It also coincides with the artist’s retrospective Giulio Paolini: To Be or Not to Be, on view at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
A great show for the iconic American gallery which has announced the opening of a new space in London in autumn 2014.
Giulio Paolini, Autoritratto (Self-Portrait), 1968
Photo emulsion on canvas, 151.1 x 126.4 cmm
by Fausta Maria Bolettieri
All images © Photo Elisabeth Bernstein. Courtesy Dominique Lévy Gallery, New York.
“Hypothesis for an Exhibition” is on until August 16, at Dominique Lévy, 909 Madison Avenue, New York City
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