The sun in Syracuse – Project for a sculpture dedicated to Archimedes

Curated by Marco Meneguzzo

05 December 2006

The burning glass, 1987/2004. Model. Steel, 70x70x70 cm. Photomontage, 2004. Syracuse

[…] Paolo Scirpa has conceived a shape recalling the concave mirror. He uses mobile metal elements, with dazzling brightness that reflects light in first place, and then generates a remote feeling of perfect form/idea, so perfect as to capture the sun and utilize it for the city's necessities, as if science were a civil virtue. The circular-arc arches, mobile “;segments”; in his sculpture, give this work characteristics of constant change. The artist utilizes an initial, visible, complete and archetypal form – the concave circle, so similar to the disc of the sun whose “;soul”; he wishes to capture – and presents a physical, potentially infinite physical deterioration. Every segment is independent in its variable position. It is the archetypal form that precedes and looks ahead to the idealized, mental reconstruction of the work.[…]

Milan, 2006