Giulio Paolini. Disegno geometrico, 1960

In 1960, twenty-year-old Giulio Paolini made an artwork with the help of a handbook, a ruling pen, and a compass. He used ink to square the white-painted canvas, and called it Disegno geometrico. A few years later he acknowledged that that modestly sized painting had marked his debut as an artist: a starting point, but also a never-ending return – both mental and formal – for each and every one of his works. Why did such an early, essential artwork become the cornerstone of Paolinian poetics? Fabio Belloni is the first to put forward an in-depth critical reading of Disegno geometrico. He explores the work’s genesis and meanings, and the powerful role it has played in the artist’s oeuvre as well as in contemporary art.

The book constitutes the sixth volume of the “In collezione” series, curated by the Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini and dedicated to in-depth monographic studies on selected works of Giulio Paolini.