Off Limits, 2004-05

The work commissioned from the artist in 2004 by Metronapoli for the Vanvitelli (Line 1) station hall of the Naples underground was inaugurated on 22 March 2005.1
A large fibreglass volume is suspended from a steel cable in the anterior part of a curved space screened by a plexiglas wall. There are several lines on the wall, as if the “meteorite” had cracked the surface of the transparent wall and were about to overcome the unsurpassable limit in which it is detained. In the artist’s own words: “The large rock formation, which seems to come from the depths of the Earth, stops up against a transparent wall”.2
A specially designed lighting system creates a backlight effect and transforms the hanging volume into an enigmatic iridescent body, whose colour changes depending on the point of observation.

1 The commission is part of the “Stazioni dell’arte” project promoted by the Naples city administration, which hosts, in the spaces inside and outside the stations, more than 180 works by 90 contemporary artists, selected under the artistic coordination of Achille Bonito Oliva (the first stations were inaugurated in 2001). On the occasion of the refurbishment of Vanvitelli station between 2004 and 2005 (by the architects Lorenzo and Michele Capobianco), the following artists were invited to make a work: for the entrance hall Vettor Pisani, Giulio Paolini, Gabriele Basilico and Olivo Barbieri; for the lower floor Mario Merz, Gilberto Zorio and Gregorio Botta; for the platform area Isabella Ducrot.
2 G. Paolini interviewed by A. Pepe, “Giulio Paolini fra San Carlo e Metrò”, in Roma (Naples), 17 March 2005, p. 11.