Orologio astronomico, 1993-94

The artist’s intervention on the eastern and western facades of the Clock Tower in the Shinjuku I-Land complex in Tokyo includes two clocks, produced by Seiko in collaboration with Giulio Paolini. The first clock, on the eastern facade, is inspired by the famous astronomical clock in Prague, reproduced with some minor variants: a different outer circle – which shows the months and the days, instead of the Arabic numerals and the old Czech Time in the Prague model – and another hand at the far end of the hand with the sun, indicating the date on the outer ring with a pencil.
The second clock, on the eastern facade, instead features a dial with the hours marked in Roman numerals along the outer edge, while in the lower half a circle with the cardinal points includes, against a blue background, the zodiacal constellations. The perspectival shortening at the bottom – with the Roman numerals only partially indicated and the circular shapes distorted so that they become ellipses – recalls the perspective from the bottom upwards.
The intervention was commissioned as part of the “Shinjuku I-LAND Public Art Project”, promoted by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Toyko Branch for an office building complex in Tokyo (Nishi Shinjuku 6-chome East District Redevelopment Project). The project curated by Fumio Nanjo includes the permanent works of ten international artists, installed both inside and outside the building complex. The tower with the two clocks is located at the south-eastern end of the Shinjuku I-Land complex, along with three other works by Paolini (GPO-0731, GPO-0732, GPO-0733).