Meridiana, 1993-94

The stainless steel inlay in a white marble surface designating the centre of a circular and concave plaza opposite the architectural complex Shinjuku I-Land in Tokyo combines two concentric motifs: a hand intent on using the tip of a pencil to mark the centre of a wristwatch on a second hand, and an orbital pattern of circles and ellipses tangential to each other originating from the circle of the watch.
The work was commissioned as part of the “Shinjuku I-Land Public Art Project”, promoted by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Tokyo Branch for an office building complex in Tokyo (Nishi Shinjuku 6-chrome 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. Paolini’s four interventions, three of which are exterior (GPO-0731, GPO-0733, GPO-1143) and one interior (GPO-0732), are aligned along the central axis of the main building. The three works are linked by a close-knit common thread: while the overturning of "sky" and "Earth" associates Hierapolis and Caleidoscopio, the presupposition of the vision from above directly correlates Hierapolis with Meridiana.
The same theme was also formulated in the wall variant located on the facade of the Chiesa di Sant’Agostino in San Gimignano, with a real pencil that recalls the style and gnomon of a sun-dial (GPO-0739).