Alighiero Boetti * Lot n° 202

(Turin 1940–1994 Rome) Oggi il diciassettesimo giorno del sesto mese dell’anno millenovecentoottantotto, 1988, signed and dated on the overlap, embroidery, 109 x 109 cm, in plexiglass box This work is registered in the Archivio Alighiero Boetti, Rome and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity Provenance: Private Collection, Italy European Private Collection Tapestry like double wave. Alighiero’s woof on Boetti’s warp. Exact superimposition of writing and drawing. Idea and execution. Art and life. A contemporary image. Predicting the identity of many of today’s works, the tapestry by Alighiero and Boetti certainly divulged an original and intriguing combination of high and low, of concept and technique. A playful, rowdy, spectacular articulation and proliferation of transgressive choices and traditional practices. Inlay of memory, technique and aesthetic innovations. Preciously and cheerfully changing combination of symbols and meanings, number, and words, geographical places and geometric grids. Competition between order and disorder, the right hand and left hand. It is an original work initially configured like a list of instructions, of variables that are exactly predefined and given by the artist. The “recipe” written by Alighiero travels between Rome and Kabul, then passing through the able hands of a group of afghan embroiderers, who thus have the fundamental task of configuring Boetti’s work, visualizing and deducing a drawing. It is difficult to imagine the outcome a priori. In the work of Alighiero chance plays a fundamental role, at least the passage of hands, the visual and material translation of a concept. The geographical distance peculiarly ends up rendering the work totally independent from the artist. And vice-versa, it offers the artist the pleasure of surprise, of sudden and un-expected re-appropriation of forgotten works. The arrival of tapestries after their long journey from Peshawar to Rome enlivened and rendered special many ordinary days over the years. Hidden inside enormous postal packages, Boetti’s embroideries knocked on Alighiero’s door, finally returning to their place of origin. CF. G. Di Pietrantonio, C. Levi, Alighiero Boetti, Quasitutto, Slivana Editoriale, 2004, P. 63