Giulio Paolini

Palomar is composed of luminous silhouettes in the form of celestial bodies that follow one another in a perspective sense through the buildings of Turin. The sequence is overseen by a tightrope walker who looks over the entire constellation holding a circle and two ellipses while balancing on a triple circle that in turn encloses a series of orbits. Giulio Paolini dedicated this work to Italo Calvino, whose novel Palomar gave this work its title. The protagonist of the book, which in turn had the name of an astronomical observatory, is a man who observes every detail of everyday life, almost to the point of obsession, in the hope of drawing a general lesson from it, only to realise the importance of looking to himself, as the object and subject in relation to the entire universe. In questioning the relationship between author and work, the act of vision is a central theme in Paolini’s work, and the choice of Palomar for his Luce (Light) is therefore particularly significant. The tightrope walker that the work culminates with thus takes on the task of representing the artist, the writer, the character and man - all men - in the search for the ultimate meaning of things. 

The first solo exhibition of Giulio Paolini (Genoa, 1940) took place in 1964, but four years earlier was Geometric drawing, that the artist recognises as his first work, the result of conceptual research that characterised his career, also within the Arte Povera movement. 

Giulio Paolini has participated in some of the most important international exhibitions (invited to four editions of documenta in Kassel and ten of the Venice Biennale), has exhibited worldwide and received numerous awards, the last of which is the prestigious Praemium Imperiale for Painting in Tokyo in 2022. 

Numerous solo exhibitions include the most recent ones: Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Rivoli (2020); Museo Novecento, Florence (2022) and Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, (2023). In 2023, on the occasion of the centenary of Italo Calvino's birth, Palomar was set up in Rome, in via XXIV Maggio, on the road leading to the Scuderie del Quirinale, which hosted the exhibition Favoloso Calvino.    

Silvia Maria Sara Cammarata