Giulio Paolini (Genoa, 1940), one of the major protagonists of Italian conceptual art, is distinguished by his ability to create works that explore the relationship between past, present and future.
In 1999 he participated in Art in Art IV with the work Almost, displayed at the Pinacoteca di Volterra, an intervention that fully embodies his poetics. The work consists precisely of this: designing the present and the future by physically basing it on the past, commenting on it and re-launching it forward, demonstrating how the language of visual art is an essential dimension not only for the artist, but for man in general.
Paolini continues to be a benchmark for his unique way of transforming the memory of art into a key to interpreting contemporary times.
Giulio Paolini, born on 5 November 1940 in Genoa, resides in Turin.
Since his first group exhibition in 1961 and his first solo exhibition in 1964, he has held countless exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world. Major retrospectives include those at the Palazzo della Pilotta in Parma (1976), the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam (1980), the Nouveau Musée in Villeurbanne (1984), the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart (1986), the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome (1988), the Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum in Graz (1998), the Fondazione Prada in Milan (2003), the Kunstmuseum in Winterthur (2005) and the Whitechapel Gallery in London (2014). He has participated in several Arte Povera exhibitions and has been repeatedly invited to Documenta in Kassel (1972, 1977, 1982, 1992) and the Venice Biennale (1970, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1984, 1986, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2013).
His work is represented in numerous international public collections. A graphic designer by training, he has always nurtured a particular interest in the publishing field and the written page. From the outset, he has accompanied his artistic research with reflections collected in curated books
in the first person: from Likewise, published in 1975 by Einaudi (Turin) with an introduction by Italo Calvino, Four steps. In the museum without muses, released in 2006 by the same publisher, and The author who believed he existed, published by Johan & Levi (Milan) in 2012.
Since 1969, he has also created sets and costumes for theatrical productions, among which the following stand out
the projects conceived with Carlo Quartucci in the Eighties and the recent stage sets for two operas
by Richard Wagner, directed by Federico Tiezzi (2005, 2007).
taken from fondazionepaolini.it