28. 28AR ALIGHIERO BOETTI (1940-1994) Oggi il decimo giorno dell'ottavo mese dell'anno millenovecento ottantotto accanto al Pantheon 1988 dated 10 agosto 88 on reverse embroidery on canvas dated 10 agosto 88 on the reverse embroidery on canvas 114 x 106 cm. 44 7/8 x 41 3/4 in. Provenance Galleria Christian Stein, Milan Private collection, Europe (acquired from the latter in 2014) Acquired from her by the current owner With their enigmatic, constellar beauty, Alighiero e Boetti's Arazzid are a pictorial revelation, imbued with a slowly maturing gestural style and dazzling unpredictability. Their delightful fractal imagery is disorientating, as if urging the viewer to come closer. Each fragment of colour, autonomous and linked, is part of an order that makes geometry dance poetically; each burst of colour is the result of a small miracle. In these embroidered works, a collector's dream of possession, multiplicity responds to duality, just as the game likes to play with measurement. For the artist who, in 1968, decided to dissociate his name by adding the coordinating conjunction "e", the question of the double is of particular importance. A year earlier, the famous Christian Stein gallery in Turin had given him his first solo exhibition, where his works already revealed a definite taste for formal juxtaposition. A few months later, the painter took part in the group exhibition Arte Povera, curated by the art critic Germano Celant, alongside Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro and Giulio Paolini. This exhibition sealed the name of the eponymous movement, which was one of the most important of the second half of the twentieth century. Claiming a socially committed attitude against consumer society, the works of this group contributed to a renewal of artistic language. For Boetti, while the creative process takes precedence over the finished object, and the concept over the aesthetic or narrative dimension of a work, the essence of his art emanates from a singular and hypnotic poetry that consists in introducing the disorder of subjectivity into the order of the rule. Because the public loves nothing more than odes to childhood, the touring retrospective devoted to him, Alighiero e Boetti: Game Plan, at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London and the MoMA in New York in 2011-2012, was an unprecedented success. His work can now be found in some of the world's leading institutions. The humour that the artist shares with Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Filliou and the Fluxus movement, as a creative ethic, is particularly evident in his large-scale embroideries. Although he is the originator of the motif - in our work, Boetti was standing next to the Pantheon in Rome on that day in 1988 - the painter's hand recedes into the background, leaving the painstaking work to the women embroiderers he met in Afghanistan (the artist bought a hotel in Kabul in the 1970s). They moved to Pakistan in 1979, following the invasion of the USSR. Afghanistan and Pakistan were countries to which he developed a deep commitment, and with which he worked from 1971 to 1994. An intercultural dialogue permeates this work, where the threads lovingly intertwine, where the letters light up, where the words, seized for a moment, slip from our understanding. Each fragment (each letter has its own formal independence) explores the combinatory possibilities of sets in a geometric matrix, where rules and games are intimately combined and thwarted. In an exhilarating visual hide-and-seek, aphorisms, proverbs and extracts from poems are revealed under the mathematical laws of the magic square, inherited from the great Arab tradition. In this work, his best-known aphorisms are mischievously revealed: Il certo e l'incerto / Essenza e sostanza / Per nuovi desideri / Fuso ma non confuso / Immaginando tutto / Dare tempo al tempo and so on. The line written in Farsi, for its part, will remain obscure to the Western spectator; but isn't this resistance what draws us in? Between revelation and disappearance, the gush of colour and the restraint of materiality, this majestic work invites a mixed feeling of exaltation and contemplation. Because Boetti is a poet, who succeeds in transmuting the sensible into the intelligible, he reveals to us the path that lies at the heart of all art, that of going beyond the marvellous to seek that which comes from intelligence and humility: wonder. With their enigmatic, cosmic beauty, Alighiero e Boetti's Arazzi are a pictorial revelation, made up of slowly maturing gestures and dazzling unpredictability. Their delightful fractal imagery is disorientating, somehow urging the viewer to come closer. Each fragment of colour, at once independent and linked, contributes to the overall pattern rousing geometry into a poetic dance; each burst of colour is the result of a small miracle. In these embroidered works, a collector's dream of possession, multiplicity responds to duality, just as the game makes light of measure. In 1968, the artist decided to dissociate his name by adding the coordinating conjunction "e", indeed to him the question of the double is of particular importance. A year earlier, the renowned Christian Stein Gallery in Turin granted him his first solo exhibition, already his works revealed a significant penchant for formal juxtaposition. A few months later, the painter took part in the group exhibition Arte Povera, curated by the art critic Germano Celant, alongside Mario Merz, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Luciano Fabro and Giulio Paolini. This exhibition sealed the name of the eponymous movement, which was among the most important of the second half of the twentieth century. Claiming a socially committed stance against the consumer society, the works of this group contributed a novel artistic language. For Boetti, while the creative process takes precedence over the finished object and the concept over the aesthetic or narrative dimension of a work, the essence of his art lies in his singular and hypnotic poetics which consists in introducing the disorder of subjectivity into the order of the rule. Since the public loves nothing more than odes to childhood, the touring retrospective devoted to him, Alighiero e Boetti: Game Plan, at the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London and the MoMA in New York in 2011-2012, met an unprecedented success. His works are collected in some of the world's leading institutions. Humour, as a creative ethic, which the artist shares with Marcel Broodthaers, Robert Filliou and the Fluxus movement, is particularly evident in his large-scale embroideries. Although he is the inventor of the motif-in our work, Boetti was standing next to the Pantheon in Rome on that day in 1988-the painter's hand withdraws to leave the meticulous task of fabrication to the women embroiderers he met in Afghanistan (the artist bought a hotel in Kabul in the 1970s). They moved to Pakistan in 1979, following the invasion of the USSR. Afghanistan and Pakistan are countries to which he developed a deep commitment, and with which he worked from 1971 to 1994. An intercultural dialogue is thus woven, in which threads lovingly intertwine, letters shimmer, and words, once grasped, instantly escape our understanding. Each fragment (each letter has its own formal independence) explores the combinatory possibilities of various groups within a geometric grid, in which rule and game are at once combined and thwarted. In an exhilarating visual hide-and-seek, aphorisms, proverbs and extracts from poems appear following the mathematical laws of the magic square, inherited from the great Arab tradition. In this work, his best-known aphorisms are mischievously concealed: Il certo e l'incerto / Essenza e sostanza / Per nuovi desideri / Fuso ma non confuso / Immaginando tutto / Dare tempo al tempo, and so on. The line written in Farsi, on the other hand, will remain obscure to the Western spectator; but is it not such resistance that captivates us so? Balancing appearance and disappearance, lavish colours and unassuming materials, this majestic work inspires emotions blending exaltation and contemplation. Since Boetti is a poet who succeeds in transmuting the sensitive into the intelligible, he discloses the path fundamental to all art, for gazing beyond the marvellous one may encounter at the confluence of intelligence and humility: Wonder.