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Palomar, 1998
GPO-0816
Property of the City of Turin
Acquired in 1998
The individual elements must be hung very high up, so that from the bottom they suggest the idea of bodies suspended in the sky.
For the initiative “Luci d’artista” promoted by the City of Turin starting in 1998 – Christmas lights commissioned from contemporary artists – Paolini conceived about one hundred luminous shapes resembling celestial bodies (stars, half-moons, circles, spheres with a meridian or an elliptical ring), hanging from steel cables over the axis of a city street. The luminous elements are made up of metal support structures and plastic pipes containing microlamps emitting a white light. The entire constellation is presided over by a larger element that represents a tightrope-walker holding a circle and two ellipses, situated at the top of a triple circle that closes off a series of orbits.
The title harkens back to a collection of stories by Italo Calvino, to whom Paolini dedicated his project.
| 1998-99 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, 21 November 1998 - 10 January 1999; installation in Via Po. |
| 1999-00 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino. Millenovecentonovantanove: sedici artisti illuminano la città, Turin, 20 November 1999 - 16 January 2000; installation in Via Po. |
| 2000-01 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, 18 November 2000 - 14 January 2001; installation in Piazza del Municipio. |
| 2001-02 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, 27 October 2001 - 13 January 2002; installation in Piazza del Municipio. |
| 2002-03 | Turin, Torino Contemporanea Luce e arte, 26 October 2002 - 15 January 2003; installation in Via Po. |
| 2003-04 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, 8 November 2003 - 11 January 2004; installation in Via Po. |
| 2004-05 | Turin, Torino Contemporanea. Luci d’artista. ManifesTO. Eventi in città, 6 November 2004 - 16 January 2005; installation in Via Po. |
| 2005-06 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, Turin, 5 November 2005 - 15 January 2006; installation in Via Po. |
| 2006-07 | Turin, Luci d’artista, Turin, 4 November 2006 - 28 January 2007; installation in Via Po. |
| 2007-08 | Salerno, Salerno notti di luce, 8 November 2007 - 31 January 2008. |
| 2008-09 | Turin, Luci d’artista a Torino, 4 November 2008 - 11 January 2009; installation in Via Po. |
| 2009-10 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 3 November 2009 - 10 January 2010; installation in Via Po (with upside down installation of the first element: the figure is erroneously oriented to the right). |
| 2010-11 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 3 November 2010 - 16 January 2011; installation in Via Po. |
| 2011-12 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 1 November 2011 - 15 January 2011; installation in Via Roma. |
| 2012-13 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 3 November 2012 - 13 January 2013; installation in Via Po. |
| 2013-14 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 1 November 2013 - 12 January 2014; installation in Via Po. |
| 2014-15 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 1 November 2014 - 11 January 2015; installation in Via Garibaldi. |
| 2015-16 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 31 October 2015 - 10 January 2016; installation in Via Po. |
| 2016-17 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 28 October 2016 - 15 January 2017; installation in Via Po. |
| 2017-18 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 27 October 2017 - 14 January 2018; installation in Via Po. |
| 2018-19 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 31 October 2018 - 13 January 2019; installation in Via Po. |
| 2019-20 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 29 October 2019 - 13 January 2020; installation in Via Po. |
| 2020-21 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 30 October 2020 - 10 January 2021; installation in Via Po. |
| 2021-22 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 29 October 2020 - 9 January 2022; installation in Via Po. |
| 2022-23 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 27 October 2022 - 8 January 2023; installation in Via Po. |
| 2023-24 | Rome, Scuderie del Quirinale, Favoloso Calvino. Il mondo come opera d’arte. Carpaccio, de Chirico, Gnoli, Melotti e gli altri, 13 October 2023 - 4 February 2024, col. repr. p. 189 (installation in Via Po), referred to in the text by M. Barenghi p. 188; installation in Via XXIV Maggio. |
| 2024-25 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 25 October 2024 - 12 January 2025; installation in Via Garibaldi. |
| 2025-26 | Turin, Luci d’artista, 24 October 2025 - 11 January 2026; installation in Via Po. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), p. 58. |
| • | Luci d’Artista a Torino (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1998), col. repr. pp. 76-77. |
| • | Giulio Paolini. Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Turin, GAM Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin: Hopefulmonster, 1999), col. repr. p. 59. |
| • | Luci d’artista a Torino. Millenovecentonovantanove: sedici artisti illuminano la città (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1999), col. repr. pp. 17, 50-51 and on cover. |
| • | Belvedere dell’arte. Orizzonti, exhibition catalogue, Florence, Forte Belvedere (Milan: Skira editore, 2003), col. repr. p. 125 (exhibition view Turin 2000). |
| • | Divina Mimesis. Un omaggio di Giulio Paolini, Rosemarie Trockel e Cy Twombly a Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante e Pier Paolo Pasolini, exhibition catalogue, Rome, Villa Poniatowski, 2005, col. repr. p. 27. |
| • | Sculture di luce. Luci d’Artista a Torino (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 2005), pp. 52-54, col. repr. |
| • | N. Orengo, Chi è di scena! (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2006), col. repr. on cover. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 2 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 816 p. 837, col. repr. |
| • | A. Portesio, “’Quello che per il pittore è la squadratura della tela, per lo scrittore è l’incipit’. L’arte di Giulio Paolini raccontata da Italo Calvino. Con un’intervista a Giulio Paolini”, in Avanguardia 14, no. 40 (Rome), June, 2009, pp. 76-77, repr. p. 79. |
| • | S. Pavanello, “Vent’anni di luci d’artista a Torino tra polemiche e acclamazioni”, in “ Titolo 8 (29), no. 16 (77) (Perugia), Summer-Autumn, 2018, p. 49, repr. p. 50. |
| • | C. Chrystov-Bakargiev, “La scomparsa del pubblico. Per una vita riservata”, in Giulio Paolini “Le Chef-d’œuvre inconnu”, exhibition catalogue, Rivoli-Turin, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, 2021, vol. 1 pp. 37-38, col. repr. p. 37. |
| • | A. Cortellessa, “I rivali invisibili. Paolini e Calvino, evoluzioni fra le cornici”, in Giulio Paolini. O.D.E., exhibition catalogue, Monforte d’Alba (Cuneo), Castello di Perno (Alba: Fondazione Mancini Carini, 2022), p. 83, repr. p. 82. |
| • | Luci d’artista. Museo a cielo aperto. 25 anni di opere luminose (Turin: Umberto Allemandi & C., 1999), p. 72 entry by S.M.S. Cammarata, col. repr. pp. 32, 72 (detail), 73. |
| • | G. Paolini, “Quando è il presente?”, in Il Pensiero 62, no. 1 (Rome), 2023, col. repr. p. 223. |
| • | D. Viva, “Molteplicità e ritratto: sovrapposizioni autoriali fra Italo Calvino e Giulio Paolini”, in California Italian Studies 12, no. 1 (Berkeley), biannual online journal, [October], 2023, p. 18, col. repr. p. 19. |
| • | A. Cortellessa, “La cornice e le stelle”, in G. Paolini, Idem (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 145, repr. p. 146. |
| • | D. Viva, “Il Pittore e il suo doppio. Giulio Paolini con Italo Calvino”, in Antinomie, collective blog, 10 January 2024, n. pag., col. repr. (exhibition view Rome 2023). |
Entry by Maddalena Disch, 01/06/2026
