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Lot Essay
‘I am interested in primary matters, such as the alphabet, the map, the newspaper, among other things owing to the spring which thus tautens between order and disorder’ – Alighiero e Boetti
‘There isn’t any contact with others, only the representation of multiple realities, ‘ononime,’ that is without a name but with the same name, that is each with their own temperament but at the same time without any form of collaboration, inasmuch as there is their reality and my own.’ – Alighiero e Boetti
An ornate example of Alighiero Boetti’s rich, polychromatic tapestries known as arazzi, Untitled from 1988 is comprised of a multi-coloured grid of twenty-five by twenty-five squares, the majority of which are overlaid with a contrastingly coloured letter. At first glance, these letters appear as a chaotic jumble of independent shapes, appreciated not for their linguistic meaning, but rather purely as autonomous geometric forms. However, concealed behind the colourful multiplicity of the squares and letters there exists a highly regulated internal system, in which a series of the artist’s favourite statements and axioms are enciphered. Boetti arranges these phrases in individual sub-squares, collapsing the gaps between the words so that they appear as a continuous stream of letters, with each section intended to be read from top to bottom and not left to right as is typical in Western culture. In this way, the arazzo straddles the border between legibility and illegibility, the letters clearly identifiable but their coded messages hidden to all but those familiar with Boetti’s complex system, and willing to decipher the pattern.
Untangling the tapestry’s dense web of colourful letters, certain playful phrases jump out at the viewer – ‘Dare tempo al tempo’ (give it time), ‘Avere fame di vento’ (to be hungry for the wind) and ‘Pisciarsi in bocca’ (piss in your mouth), aphorisms and sayings which reappeared across Boetti’s multifaceted practice again and again. Others explore the intriguing quirks of language, placing two words similar in sound and construction but of opposing meanings alongside one another, such as ‘incontri e scontri’ (meetings and clashes), ‘coperte e scoperte’ (covers and discovers), and ‘rispetti dispetti’ (respect teasing). By splitting each of these texts into their own constituent parts – the individual letters which together give them meaning – and removing the traditional structures through which they can be read, Boetti exposes language as a sophisticated but nonetheless artificial systematic arrangement of form. In this way, Untitled embodies one of Boetti’s most important guiding principles – his belief that the unity of the world rests on a delicate balance of ordine e disordine (order and disorder): ‘There is an exact order innate in each and every thing,’ he proclaimed, ‘even if it manifests in a disorderly manner’ (Boetti, quoted in L. Rolf, Alighiero Boetti: Mettere al Mondo il Mondo, Cantz, 1998, p. 29).
While the arazzi were printed or drawn out in Boetti’s Roman studio, they were then transported thousands of miles east, to be embroidered by teams of Afghan women living in Peshawar Pakistan, refugees from the ongoing conflict in their homeland. The women formed special working groups to complete the intricate designs, sometimes working two or three at a time on a single tapestry, with several hands starting from different points in the fabric and stitching alongside one another to complete the artwork. Boetti never met the women responsible for the creation of his designs, as they lived in an extremely private feminine universe, protected by tradition and cultural mores. As such his designs were translated to them through a number of collaborators and assistants, while certain aspects of the design were left deliberately unspecified so as to allow for opportunities of creative chance. For example, Boetti admired the Afghan women’s instinctual contrasting and pairing of colours, and often relinquished the control of tone and pigment choice entirely to them. In this way, Boetti opens the artwork to an endless array of potential colour permutations and serendipities, whilst simultaneously granting these traditionally invisible craftswomen a new presence in the artwork, highlighting their integral contributions to the realisation of final design.
‘There isn’t any contact with others, only the representation of multiple realities, ‘ononime,’ that is without a name but with the same name, that is each with their own temperament but at the same time without any form of collaboration, inasmuch as there is their reality and my own.’ – Alighiero e Boetti
An ornate example of Alighiero Boetti’s rich, polychromatic tapestries known as arazzi, Untitled from 1988 is comprised of a multi-coloured grid of twenty-five by twenty-five squares, the majority of which are overlaid with a contrastingly coloured letter. At first glance, these letters appear as a chaotic jumble of independent shapes, appreciated not for their linguistic meaning, but rather purely as autonomous geometric forms. However, concealed behind the colourful multiplicity of the squares and letters there exists a highly regulated internal system, in which a series of the artist’s favourite statements and axioms are enciphered. Boetti arranges these phrases in individual sub-squares, collapsing the gaps between the words so that they appear as a continuous stream of letters, with each section intended to be read from top to bottom and not left to right as is typical in Western culture. In this way, the arazzo straddles the border between legibility and illegibility, the letters clearly identifiable but their coded messages hidden to all but those familiar with Boetti’s complex system, and willing to decipher the pattern.
Untangling the tapestry’s dense web of colourful letters, certain playful phrases jump out at the viewer – ‘Dare tempo al tempo’ (give it time), ‘Avere fame di vento’ (to be hungry for the wind) and ‘Pisciarsi in bocca’ (piss in your mouth), aphorisms and sayings which reappeared across Boetti’s multifaceted practice again and again. Others explore the intriguing quirks of language, placing two words similar in sound and construction but of opposing meanings alongside one another, such as ‘incontri e scontri’ (meetings and clashes), ‘coperte e scoperte’ (covers and discovers), and ‘rispetti dispetti’ (respect teasing). By splitting each of these texts into their own constituent parts – the individual letters which together give them meaning – and removing the traditional structures through which they can be read, Boetti exposes language as a sophisticated but nonetheless artificial systematic arrangement of form. In this way, Untitled embodies one of Boetti’s most important guiding principles – his belief that the unity of the world rests on a delicate balance of ordine e disordine (order and disorder): ‘There is an exact order innate in each and every thing,’ he proclaimed, ‘even if it manifests in a disorderly manner’ (Boetti, quoted in L. Rolf, Alighiero Boetti: Mettere al Mondo il Mondo, Cantz, 1998, p. 29).
While the arazzi were printed or drawn out in Boetti’s Roman studio, they were then transported thousands of miles east, to be embroidered by teams of Afghan women living in Peshawar Pakistan, refugees from the ongoing conflict in their homeland. The women formed special working groups to complete the intricate designs, sometimes working two or three at a time on a single tapestry, with several hands starting from different points in the fabric and stitching alongside one another to complete the artwork. Boetti never met the women responsible for the creation of his designs, as they lived in an extremely private feminine universe, protected by tradition and cultural mores. As such his designs were translated to them through a number of collaborators and assistants, while certain aspects of the design were left deliberately unspecified so as to allow for opportunities of creative chance. For example, Boetti admired the Afghan women’s instinctual contrasting and pairing of colours, and often relinquished the control of tone and pigment choice entirely to them. In this way, Boetti opens the artwork to an endless array of potential colour permutations and serendipities, whilst simultaneously granting these traditionally invisible craftswomen a new presence in the artwork, highlighting their integral contributions to the realisation of final design.