Air 1983

Giulio Paolini created this installation, called Air, in no particular year using a variety of media. The hanging sculpture of the winged figure is a head-scratcher! Is it about the myth of Icarus, crashing to earth? Maybe. I can imagine Paolini in the studio thinking through these heavy ideas – like gravity and the failure of ambition. What I love is the shadow, which makes a disturbing but kinda funny doppelganger of the figure, like a cartoon character who’s had a very bad day. The glass panel on the floor has a network of cracks, like a shattered mirror, or a broken world. Paolini’s work always has a wink of self-awareness in it – a kind of knowing acknowledgment of art history. It's like he’s saying, "Yeah, I’m playing with all these big themes, but let's not take ourselves too seriously, okay?" Artists are constantly building on what came before, reinterpreting old ideas in new ways. That is how we keep the conversation going!