Meridiana, 1991
GPO-0686
Sundial
Plexiglas sheet, lithographic print, sheet of tracing paper, sheet of graph paper, black pencil
Dismantled work
A plexiglas sheet propped up against the corner of a table so that it touches the wall with just one side holds at the top right three paper elements that are staggered in relation to each other: the lithograph made for the print edition entitled Come non detto (1990, GPE-0075), in which one hand indicates with the tip of a pencil the centre of the wristwatch on the other hand; a sheet of tracing paper and a sheet of graph paper. A pencil inserted in the plexiglas sheet pierces the drawing of the two hands in the area corresponding to the drawn tip of the pencil, as if to suggest the absolute instant when all the parts coincide.
The title refers to the analogy between the black pencil fixed in the sheet and the style or gnomon of a meridian, whose shadow when projected over the quadrant marks the time.
The same theme corresponds to a later variant, made in 1992 (GPO-0701). The title and the drawing of the hands were further developed in two other works conceived in 1994 (GPO-0733, GPO-0739).
| 1991 | Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, Metafore. Gianni Kounellis e Giulio Paolini, 28 May • 31 October, not repr. |
| • | G. Paolini in the interview with M. Bourel, “Giulio Paolini, contemplateur donc”, in Art Press 164 (Paris), December, 1991, p. 19; republished in Italian in Giulio Paolini. La voce del pittore – Scritti e interviste 1965-1995, edited by M. Disch (Lugano: ADV Publishing House, 1995), pp. 259-260. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 686 p. 700, col. repr. (exhibition view Rome 1991). |
