G. Paolini, “Meridiana” – Affinità, 1994
Chiesa di Sant’Agostino
San Gimignano
Meridiana(Sundial) was made for the façade of the church of Sant Agostino on the occasion of the group exhibition “Affinità. Cinque artisti a San Gimignano” held in the summer of 1994 in San Gimignano, Italy. It is the same in size and location as a much older meridian that has since been lost. Two concentric motifs are engraved on a white-painted quadrant: a hand intent on using the tip of a pencil to mark the centre of a wristwatch on another hand, and an orbital pattern of circles and ellipses tangential to each other originating from the circle of the watch. A bronze slightly tilted pencil is fastened to the tip of the drawn pencil. The bronze pencil marks the start of the two drawings and at the same time it serves as a gnomon. Scattered all around the astral motif are the words “Tout se tient” (Everything holds together), arranged so that they begin and end with the letter “T” and involve within their orbit the four cardinal points, i.e. “O” (west), “S” (south), “E” (east), “N” (north). The French expression, first used by the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, refers to a system of signs in which all the parts are coherent and interrelated, in the same way that the planetary orbit motif evokes the celestial iconography as an independent system in perfect balance and, as such, an image of harmony that is in itself complete. “Tout se tient” appeared for the first time in the title of a work dated to 1989,
Fonte: http://www.fondazionepaolini.it
Maddalena Disch
