Galileo's Skies
2000
Screenprint on metallic paper
Margherita Abbozzo

Margherita Abbozzo's Web Site

Galileo's Skies is a screenprint on metallic paper, printed by the artist in the year 2000 in an unique copy. The work is part of a project started in 1994, exhibited in Amsterdam in 1998 and in Florence in 1999-2000. On the occasion of the show at the Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory, the artist also published Stelle, a book that brings together two artists - Margherita Abbozzo and the poet Mario Luzi - and two scientists - Margherita Hack and Franco Pacini - in exploring the contemporary meaning of a human's relationship with the skies.

In her work, Margherita Maria Celeste Abbozzo mixes the vocabulary of art with those of science and religion. Her interest lies in these systems developed by man in order to give meaning to life, make sense of chaos, and understand man's position in the universe.

Galileo's Skies brings together an intricate maze of rhumb lines and a beautiful drawing by Galileo of the belt and sword in the Orion constellation, as published in his Sidereus Nuncius.

The metallic paper, with its mirror effect, reflects the beholder and projects him into the skies. It is an open invitation to either follow Galileo on his voyage of discovery, or to explore the new and diverse paths opened up in the skies by contemporary science.