Icaro, 1967

A primed canvas in a tilted position and with a hole in the middle is fastened to the upper part of the wall. It is pierced by several coloured nylon threads that drop down to the ground in a tangle. The title – originally I(car)o [I(carus)] – suggests the formulation of a self-portrait, alluding to Icarus who, according to Greek mythology, flew upwards with two wax wings his father Dedalus had made for him attached to his shoulders. But when he flew too close to the sun he fell into the sea.
At first, the artist planned to use a small photographic canvas (15 x 15 cm), instead of the plexiglas element, featuring the detail that shows him holding a blank canvas. The image would have shown him "suspended in space, as if he were a kite", while the nylon strings threaded through the canvas would have "poured down on the ground like a lovely multicoloured mane".1

1 G. Paolini interviewed by C. Lonzi, in Collage 7 (Palermo), May, 1967, p. 45 (this part was omitted from subsequent reprints of the interview); original version republished in C. Lonzi, Autoritratto (Bari: De Donato Editore, 1969), pp. 55-56, reprint (Milan: Et al./Edizioni, 2010), p. 40, English edition (Brussels-London: Divided Publishing, 2021), p. 54, and in C. Lonzi, Scritti sull'arte (Milan: Et al./Edizioni, 2012), pp. 523-524.