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Lot Essay
‘Boetti sometimes opens up a new experience in which we read words differently and appreciate the shapes and colours of letters, rather than just approaching language for its information and instrumental purposes’ (M. Godfrey, Alighiero e Boetti, London 2009, pp. 128-129).
Executed in 1988, Alighiero Boetti’s Oggi e l’undicesimo giorno del sesto mese dell’anno 1000 novecento ottantootto is a particularly comprehensive example of Boetti’s great series of Arazzi (Tapestries) that serve as a kind of compendium, or pantheon perhaps, of many of the artist’s favourite themes, philosophies and axioms. In this work Boetti offers a linguistic riddle embedded within each block of sixteen squares. Beginning at the top left are the words ‘imaginando tutto’, which poetically translates to ‘imagining all’. Following this progression, the sentence directly below this square on the second row spells out the artist’s name: ‘Alighiero e Boetti’. The patterns snake around the composition, leading the viewer to the title at the centre of the composition in a large nine-by-nine grid: Oggi è l’undicesimo giorno del sesto mese dell’anno 1000 novecentoottantotto, which translates to ‘Today is the eleventh day of the sixth month of the year’. This is followed by the inscription ‘All’amato Pantheon’, which translates to ‘Beloved Pantheon’. Creating a cross through the centre of the composition, the words ‘Peshawar’ and ‘Pakistan’ are strung both vertically and horizontally across the entirety of the grid, a nod to the location where the work was created.
Founded on his principles of ordine e disordine (the notion that the world consists entirely of a yin and yang-like division of order and disorder), the Arazzo are a colourful composite of organised disorder. Decrypting the puzzle of colours and symbols, Arazzi reveal themselves to be written texts consisting of individual letters each highlighted or obscured against a contrasting square, whose background colour was determined by the Afghan women embroidering these works according to Boetti’s guidelines. By splitting the text into its own constituent parts - its individual letters - Boetti exposes language as a sophisticated but nonetheless artificial systematic arrangement of form. This organising principle informs the strict formal ordering and visual rhythm of the work. As Mark Godfrey suggests, ‘Boetti sometimes opens up a new experience in which we read words differently and appreciate the shapes and colours of letters, rather than just approaching language for its information and instrumental purposes’ (M. Godfrey, Alighiero e Boetti, London 2009, pp. 128-129).
Executed in 1988, Alighiero Boetti’s Oggi e l’undicesimo giorno del sesto mese dell’anno 1000 novecento ottantootto is a particularly comprehensive example of Boetti’s great series of Arazzi (Tapestries) that serve as a kind of compendium, or pantheon perhaps, of many of the artist’s favourite themes, philosophies and axioms. In this work Boetti offers a linguistic riddle embedded within each block of sixteen squares. Beginning at the top left are the words ‘imaginando tutto’, which poetically translates to ‘imagining all’. Following this progression, the sentence directly below this square on the second row spells out the artist’s name: ‘Alighiero e Boetti’. The patterns snake around the composition, leading the viewer to the title at the centre of the composition in a large nine-by-nine grid: Oggi è l’undicesimo giorno del sesto mese dell’anno 1000 novecentoottantotto, which translates to ‘Today is the eleventh day of the sixth month of the year’. This is followed by the inscription ‘All’amato Pantheon’, which translates to ‘Beloved Pantheon’. Creating a cross through the centre of the composition, the words ‘Peshawar’ and ‘Pakistan’ are strung both vertically and horizontally across the entirety of the grid, a nod to the location where the work was created.
Founded on his principles of ordine e disordine (the notion that the world consists entirely of a yin and yang-like division of order and disorder), the Arazzo are a colourful composite of organised disorder. Decrypting the puzzle of colours and symbols, Arazzi reveal themselves to be written texts consisting of individual letters each highlighted or obscured against a contrasting square, whose background colour was determined by the Afghan women embroidering these works according to Boetti’s guidelines. By splitting the text into its own constituent parts - its individual letters - Boetti exposes language as a sophisticated but nonetheless artificial systematic arrangement of form. This organising principle informs the strict formal ordering and visual rhythm of the work. As Mark Godfrey suggests, ‘Boetti sometimes opens up a new experience in which we read words differently and appreciate the shapes and colours of letters, rather than just approaching language for its information and instrumental purposes’ (M. Godfrey, Alighiero e Boetti, London 2009, pp. 128-129).