Lugano
Alighiero Boetti, also known as Alighiero e Boetti since 1971, was born in Turin in 1940. Although he did not receive an academic artistic education, he approached theoretical reflection on creativity and the conceptual role of art from an early age. His career began in 1967, when he joined the Arte Povera movement, a sphere in which he quickly distinguished himself for his intellectual and experimental approach.
At the beginning of the 1970s, he moved to Rome and began travelling frequently to Afghanistan, where he became fascinated by the local artisan culture, particularly the art of embroidery. This experience gave rise to many of his most iconic works, such as the famous Maps, planispheres hand-embroidered by Afghan artisans that record the geopolitical changes on the planet. During these years, his production expanded and diversified: from alphabetical grids embroidered with sayings and aphorisms to biro backgrounds. These works embody his interest in the dialectic between order and disorder, necessity and chance, as well as in the author’s concept of delegation and multiplication.
In 1973 he held his first solo exhibition in the United States, at the John Weber Gallery in New York, marking the beginning of his international breakthrough. Since then he has exhibited regularly in Italy and abroad, participating in some of the most emblematic exhibitions of his generation, such as When Attitudes Become Form (1969), Contemporanea (1973), Identité italienne (1981) and The Italian Metamorphosis 1943-1968 (1994). He exhibited several times at the Venice Biennale, with a solo room in the 1990 edition. His career was prematurely interrupted by his death in 1994. Today, Boetti’s work is held in prestigious public and private collections and is regularly exhibited in the world’s major museums and institutions, confirming his position as one of the most influential figures in art of the second half of the 20th century.
