ALIGHIERO BOETTI (Torino 1940 - Roma 1994)
Un filo di voce un filo di luce, 1987 ca.

Embroidery on fabric, 21,7 x 23,2 cm;

The work is part of the series of so-called 'arazzi', launched by Boetti in the early 1970s and linked to his presence in Afghanistan. In March 1971 Boetti had been in Afghanistan for the first time, in Kabul, where he later decided to open the One Hotel. This marked the beginning of the project of embroidered works, such as the Mappe: a series of tapestries representing the political planisphere and documenting the movement of national borders over the years. The Maps were woven for him by a group of Afghan women in accordance with the local ancestral technique of carpet making, and for Boetti these maps were also a reason to reflect on the artist's delegation of manual labour. The Maps are followed by the production of square or rectangular tapestries of different sizes that follow precise "rules of the game" and often take the form of exhausting exercises in the repetition of figures or symbols, based on musical or mathematical rhythms. In this works by Alighiero Boetti, the obsession with multiplying, dividing and counting the aspects of language and its signs emerges; every idiom and every assonance is conceived in such a way that it can be inserted into a square and repeated twice within it. Un filo di voce un filo di luce is no exception and it fits perfectly into the characteristics of the numerical game that the artist proposes throughout his career.

Authentic by Alighiero Boetti Archive

Excellent conditions