.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Time is one of the central themes running through all of Alighiero Boetti’s art from his beginnings amongst the Arte Povera generation of the late 1960s to his death in 1994. ‘Time is a fundamental,’ Boetti said, ‘it’s the principal factor in everything. Besides, it doesn't take much to say this, but it's really the basis. Dates and postage stamps and squares are always a management of time that is the sole truly magical thing there is, incredibly elastic. Everyone has his own time.' (Alighiero Boetti quoted in Alighiero & Boetti exh. cat. Naples 2009, p. 215)
Ammazzare il tempo (To Kill Time) is a unique grouping of nine individual piccoli arazzi (small tapestries), made in Afghanistan, in 1978, that playfully invoke this key aspect of Boetti’s work. It comprises of nine square tapestries - each one made up of the phrase ‘Ammazzare il Tempo’ broken down into its sixteen constituent letters. These are all subsequently rearranged (either vertically, horizontally or concentrically) within the square to form a picturesque pattern of randomly organised embroidered colour. In this way Ammazzare il tempo becomes a work that both visually and literally presents the concept of ‘killing time’ as a joyous, colourful and painstakingly crafted enterprise. It is a tautology – a beautifully organised (and disorganised) statement that represents nothing but its own self in a different visual format. As such it is a work that, like so many of Boetti’s creations, is one that asserts the artist’s belief that ‘the greatest joy on earth consists in inventing the world the way it is without inventing anything in the process.’ (Alighiero Boetti quoted in Alighiero Boetti exh. cat., Frankfurt Am Main, 1998 p. 297.)
Another important aspect of arazzi like Ammazzare il tempo is that such works often aimed at creating a sense of visual fusion between Eastern and Western thought and ideology, and, through this fusion, to expose a deeper sense of the innate union and the division that exists in the world. Founded on Boetti’s belief in the universal principle of ordine e disordine (the Heraclitan idea that the world consists entirely of a yin and yang-like division of ‘order’ and ‘disorder’), Boetti’s arazzi are all colourful composites of organised disorder. Comprising of individual coloured letters - each highlighted or obscured against a contrasting square coloured background that was determined by the Afghan women who embroidered these works according to Boetti’s guidelines - all the arazzi are essentially written texts. Boetti’s splitting of the text into its own constituent parts - its individual letters - was also intended to expose the fact that language too is but another sophisticated but nonetheless also artificial systematic arrangement of form.
Time was the other key feature of the arazzi and their making. Because of the way in which they were made, the process of the making of these works was, by necessity a long one: sometimes taking over a year to complete. Not only was the process of embroidering these works a time-consuming one, but the sending and receiving back of these works (across an imaginary borderline between East and West) was also a prolonged process. The arazzi were therefore the products of extended periods of time spent, making (on the part of the artist’s Afghan collaborators) and waiting (on Boetti’s part). Both sides of this process can, as Boetti was well aware, be considered to be, in different ways, effective means of ‘killing time’.
Ammazzare il tempo (To Kill Time) is a unique grouping of nine individual piccoli arazzi (small tapestries), made in Afghanistan, in 1978, that playfully invoke this key aspect of Boetti’s work. It comprises of nine square tapestries - each one made up of the phrase ‘Ammazzare il Tempo’ broken down into its sixteen constituent letters. These are all subsequently rearranged (either vertically, horizontally or concentrically) within the square to form a picturesque pattern of randomly organised embroidered colour. In this way Ammazzare il tempo becomes a work that both visually and literally presents the concept of ‘killing time’ as a joyous, colourful and painstakingly crafted enterprise. It is a tautology – a beautifully organised (and disorganised) statement that represents nothing but its own self in a different visual format. As such it is a work that, like so many of Boetti’s creations, is one that asserts the artist’s belief that ‘the greatest joy on earth consists in inventing the world the way it is without inventing anything in the process.’ (Alighiero Boetti quoted in Alighiero Boetti exh. cat., Frankfurt Am Main, 1998 p. 297.)
Another important aspect of arazzi like Ammazzare il tempo is that such works often aimed at creating a sense of visual fusion between Eastern and Western thought and ideology, and, through this fusion, to expose a deeper sense of the innate union and the division that exists in the world. Founded on Boetti’s belief in the universal principle of ordine e disordine (the Heraclitan idea that the world consists entirely of a yin and yang-like division of ‘order’ and ‘disorder’), Boetti’s arazzi are all colourful composites of organised disorder. Comprising of individual coloured letters - each highlighted or obscured against a contrasting square coloured background that was determined by the Afghan women who embroidered these works according to Boetti’s guidelines - all the arazzi are essentially written texts. Boetti’s splitting of the text into its own constituent parts - its individual letters - was also intended to expose the fact that language too is but another sophisticated but nonetheless also artificial systematic arrangement of form.
Time was the other key feature of the arazzi and their making. Because of the way in which they were made, the process of the making of these works was, by necessity a long one: sometimes taking over a year to complete. Not only was the process of embroidering these works a time-consuming one, but the sending and receiving back of these works (across an imaginary borderline between East and West) was also a prolonged process. The arazzi were therefore the products of extended periods of time spent, making (on the part of the artist’s Afghan collaborators) and waiting (on Boetti’s part). Both sides of this process can, as Boetti was well aware, be considered to be, in different ways, effective means of ‘killing time’.