Mimesi 1988

This is Giulio Paolini's Mimesi, and it was made using plaster casts. The two plaster figures call up a kind of double vision. The whiteness of the plaster creates a pure, almost ghostly presence. The texture looks smooth, but also porous, like it would absorb light, and maybe even your touch, if you could reach out and feel it. It seems the sculptures are in conversation, or maybe even in confrontation with each other. The missing arms add to this feeling, as if they were once whole, but now frozen in a perpetual state of incompleteness. I love how this piece is an echo of classical forms, but with a distinctly modern twist, and I immediately think of Giorgio de Chirico. The sense of mystery, the use of classical forms, and the dreamlike quality are very familiar. Ultimately, Mimesi invites us to think about copies, originals, and the endless conversations that art has with itself across time.