Voyager (IV), 2004
GPO-0895
Portable drafting machine, xerox reproductions, plexiglas sheets
Two plexiglas sheets 50 x 70 cm each, overall dimensions variable
Dismantled work
A portable drafting machine, hung from the ceiling in an open position so that thanks to its mechanical elements and measurement instruments it recalls the space shuttle evoked in the title, holds the photographic reproduction of a blue sky and the cut-out image of a wing (taken from the Monument to the Royal Stuarts by Antonio Canova). On the ground, the torn image of a second cut-out wing is held down – along with the remaining parts of the photographic background from which the wing was cut – between two staggered plexiglas sheets.
Between the whole wing and the broken wing the artist’s broken dream is consumed, who after his attempts (in vain) to touch an ideal dimension – represented by the sky and the suspended wing – falls to the ground.
The work is part of a series of four variants, made between 1989 and 2004, which are distinguished by the elements hanging from the drafting machine and arranged on the ground (GPO-0647, GPO-0651, GPO-0762, GPO-0895).
• Image of the sky from the cover of Drapeaux d’artistes, exhibition catalogue, Geneva, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, 1987.
• Wings: Antonio Canova, Genius on the right of the Cenotafio degli Stuart, 1817-19, marble, 560 x 280 x 140 cm, Basilica di San Pietro, Rome; reproduction from L’opera completa di Canova. Classici dell’arte 213 (Milan: Rizzoli, 1976), plates LVIII and LIX.
| 2004 | Rome, Galleria dell’Oca, Giulio Paolini. Carte segrete, 5 November 2004 - 10 January 2005. |
| • | M. D'Alessandro, L. Laureati, “Giulio Paolini. Le cose, materia di disegno”, in disegno industriale 13 (Rome), 2005, col. repr. pp. 104, 105 (exhibition view Rome 2004). |
