Astrolabe, 1989
GPO-0654
Collage on black paper, plexiglas shape, marble sphere
10 x 60 x 60 cm
Private collection, Turin
A plexiglas sheet in the shape of an ellipse, with a speckled black marble ball at the centre, is placed on a larger square sheet. It is slightly staggered in relation to the space featuring an elliptical plan reproduced in the colour image, torn in half, and held down on a black sheet of paper underneath the plexiglas sheet. The globe-sphere serves as a pivot for the rotatory dynamic suggested by the whole.
The same theme was developed in a subsequent variant, made in 1994 (GPO-0743).
The title – borrowed from a drawing by Francis Picabia (Astrolabe, ca. 1922) and used by the artist for the first time in 1967 – can also be found in four other works (GPO-0125, GPO-0127, GPO-0744, GPO-0758).
View of the entrance hall of the Umaid Bhavan Palace, Jodhpur; reproduction from Andrew Robinson, Maharajah. L'India dei principi e delle regge (Milan: Rizzoli, 1988), pp. 132-133.
| 1990 | Bologna, Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna, Villa delle Rose, Giulio Paolini. Hotel de l’Univers, 27 May - 29 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 19 p. 17, repr. pp. 73, 75 (exhibition views). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 654 p. 671, col. repr. |
