Lot Essay
This work is registered in the Archivio Alighiero Boetti, Rome, under no. 684.
'A word changes into a sign, into a compilation of commas which means something. You see, that is a rule...One of my biro works was called Seguire il filo del discorso (following the thread of the conversation). You follow the thread of these commas. To follow the thread of a conversation is tautology, and quite apart from the rule, there is the structure of the transformation of the word into a sign. This is what you must make visible, you must render the comma visible as something that is not stable, that is unstable, and these small white points stand on a background hatched by another hand.' (Alighiero Boetti cited in Alighiero Boetti. Mettere al mondo il mondo exh. cat. Frankfurt 1998, p. 63)
Consisting of a sequence of commas, laid out in a systemised grid according to the letters of the alphabet arranged vertically at the side of the work, Boetti's coded linguistic system spells out (left-to-right) its title Segno e disegno (Sign and Design) against a fluctuating red monochrome field. This field has been made, by at least two people, one male the other female, according to instructions stipulated by Boetti and allowing for a variation of individual style, through a long painstaking process of cross-hatching with a red biro.
'A word changes into a sign, into a compilation of commas which means something. You see, that is a rule...One of my biro works was called Seguire il filo del discorso (following the thread of the conversation). You follow the thread of these commas. To follow the thread of a conversation is tautology, and quite apart from the rule, there is the structure of the transformation of the word into a sign. This is what you must make visible, you must render the comma visible as something that is not stable, that is unstable, and these small white points stand on a background hatched by another hand.' (Alighiero Boetti cited in Alighiero Boetti. Mettere al mondo il mondo exh. cat. Frankfurt 1998, p. 63)
Consisting of a sequence of commas, laid out in a systemised grid according to the letters of the alphabet arranged vertically at the side of the work, Boetti's coded linguistic system spells out (left-to-right) its title Segno e disegno (Sign and Design) against a fluctuating red monochrome field. This field has been made, by at least two people, one male the other female, according to instructions stipulated by Boetti and allowing for a variation of individual style, through a long painstaking process of cross-hatching with a red biro.