Voyager (III), 1989-95
GPO-0762
Portable drafting machine, men’s shoe, photographic reproduction on acetate, plexiglas sheet
Dismantled work
• 1995, Padua, Palazzo della Ragione: the photographic units are arranged on four of the sixty-four canvases of the work titled Essere o non essere (GPO-0757).
The work which is constituted by a drafting machine hung from the ceiling and associated with other elements arranged on the ground has up until now featured a different arrangement at each presentation.
In 1996 in Paris, the drafting machine held down two images in a blue tone of planets on a sheet of transparent acetate rolled up in a scroll, while inside the upside-down black men's shoe on the ground at the centre of a plexiglas sheet was a third, identical photographic film shaped like a cone, alluding to Mercury's winged shoes.
In 1998 in Graz, the drafting machine held down a sheet of tracing paper, while on the ground, instead of a shoe, underneath a plexiglas sheet there was a handwritten list of all the other works on display, which had already been handed over and "abandoned".
In 1999 in Turin, the drafting machine did not withhold any paper element, while on the ground sheets of black paper held down by a plexiglas sheet reproduced the star-shaped plan of the central exhibition space (the so-called "enchanted island"), and listed, in small white squares, the titles of the other works on display.
The work is part of a group of four variants, made between 1989 and 2004 (GPO-0647, GPO-0651, GPO-0762, GPO-0895).
| 1996 | Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Giulio Paolini. L’Île enchantée, 6 January - 17 February. |
| 1998 | Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum, Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, 4 April - 31 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 8 p. 182, col. repr. p. 326 (exhibition view Paris 1996). |
| 1999 | Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, 8 May - 25 July, cited in the checklist of exhibited works no. 36 p. 38, repr. pp. 97 (exhibition view Graz 1998, detail), 117 (exhibition view). |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Premio Internazionale Koinè 2000 alla carriera, exhibition catalogue, Verona, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Palazzo Forti (Milan: Electa, 2001), col. repr. pp. 54-55 (exhibition view Paris 1996), 58-59 (exhibition view Turin 1999). |
| • | G. Paolini, Quattro passi. Nel museo senza muse (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), plate no. X (exhibition view Graz 1998). |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 762 p. 774, not repr. |
| • | Arte povera 2011, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Mondadori Electa, 2011), col. repr. no. 323 (exhibition view Paris 1996). |
| • | A. Soldaini, “‘Cos’altro c’è da dire?’”, in Giulio Paolini. A come Accademia, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Accademia Nazionale di San Luca (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2023), col. repr. pp. 40 (exhibition view Paris 1996), 227 (exhibition view Graz 1998), 231 (exhibition view Turin 1999). |
