Alighiero Boetti
(Turin, 1940 - Rome, 1994)
Conceptual, eclectic, and ductile artist, among those related to Arte Povera, Boetti has produced a great variety of works. At the beginning of the 1960s he dedicated himself to abstract paintings and designs. Later on, he made a series of reproductions based on microphones and cameras employing an industrial design technique and started experimenting with materials like masonite, plexiglass, and luminous elements. His first public appearance dates back to 1967, with his first solo exhibition at the Christian Stein Gallery in Turin. In this occasion, he presented different kinds of artworks employing extra-artistic techniques and industrial materials, like eternit, iron, wood, and camouflage fabric. At the beginning of the 1960s he discovered Afghanistan and its culture, where he started to work in cooperation with Afghan embroiderers. This was the genesis of the artworks on maps and colorful planispheres that Boetti reproposed all along his career, reflecting on the political changes in the world. In 1972 his production shifted towards conceptualism, he changed his name in "Alighiero and Boetti" putting his own identity into crisis. In 1985 he returned to Japan, where he had already exhibited in 1980. During this journey he created some artworks with rice paper. One of his last relevant exhibitions in a public institution was at the La Biennale di Venezia in 1990, where he was honored with a personal room, in which he exhibited a continuous frieze that wounded between the walls and ten large works on paper.
Among his solo and group exhibitions, we can mention: Alighiero Boetti (Christian Stein Gallery, Turin, 1967); When Attitudes Become Form (Kunsthalle, Bern, 1969); Documenta (Kassel, 1972; 1982; 2012); Venice Biennale (Venice, 1978; 1980; 1986; 1990; 1993; 1995; 2001); POINT DE MIRE. Alighiero e Boetti (Centre Georges Pompidou - Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris, 1993); Alighiero Boetti. Mettere al mondo il mondo (MMK - Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, 1998); Alighiero Boetti (Neues Museum, Nürnberg, 2004); Alighiero & Boetti. Mettere all’arte il mondo 1993-1962 (MADRE - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples, 2009); Alighiero Boetti. Estrategia de juego (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, 2010); Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan (Tate Modern, London, 2012; MoMA - Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012); Alighiero Boetti a Roma (MAXXI - Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome, 2013).
