Alighiero Boetti
Biography
Artistic currents
Market analysis
Contributions
Biography
Alighiero Boetti was born in Turin on December 16, 1940 to a lawyer father and a violinist mother. The father soon leaves the family so the mother has to take care of it by doing even humble jobs forgetting the career of a promising violinist. He spent his youth among listless studies and small businesses but attending museums and galleries. He stayed in Paris for a few years and then returned to Turin in a small apartment-studio where, in the mid-60s, he began to design industrial devices and in these drawings he inserted well-hidden letters, an omen of that type of art for which he was later identified. He then moves from paper to the objects that he exhibits at Cristian Stein's but which are still unknown to the public. In those years he had solo exhibitions, as well as at Stein's, at La Bertesca in Genoa and at Toselli's in Milan. He also participated in all the collective exhibitions of the "Arte Povera" movement and then detached himself in 1971 for the cooling with the other artists of the movement. In fact, although Boetti is often classified as an exponent of Arte Povera, he can be spoken of as a conceptual artist. This statement stands out already from the first works such as the one called "Gemelli", which is a photomontage of two photos of the artist the same and that gave him the idea to sign himself "Alighiero and Boetti". As well as the work called "The trial of harmony and invention" mental process transferred with marks on squared sheets, decidedly incomprehensible. The definition of "conceptual artist" takes strength as he continues in his work that is often carried out by others on the instruction of boetti himself, such as the "Postcards", the "Smileys", the "Tapestries", the "Maps". To make the tapestries and maps since 1971 Boetti makes long stays in Afghanistan in Kabul, where he also opens a hotel with a single room, having the tapestries made by local embroiderers. In 1972 he moved permanently to Rome in Trastevere and then moved later to Via del Pantheon where he took inspiration from his notes and drawings to print the book "Accanto al Pantheon". Following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he moved the processing of tapestries in Pakistan to Peshawar using Afghan women who had taken refuge there. In the eighties and until his death the work continues with a frantic rhythm of exhibitions and new inventions such as the cycle "Nature, a dark matter", the cycle "Everything", the ceramic mosaics, the "Calendars" to finish with the sculpture-fountain called "Self-portrait" made at the studio of Arnaldo Pomodoro when he was already very ill but, despite this, he undergoes a whole day of poses dressed and smeared with separating paint for the cast of the casting. Boetti's exhibition activity was intense both in Italy and abroad starting from the 1969 Bern collective "When attitudes became form" continuing with the Weber, Sperone, Stein, MOMA gallery, Centre Pompidou, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, etc and the three Venice Biennales, 1972, 1980, 1990. Boetti died at his home in Rome on April 24, 1994.
Tags: Alighiero Boetti - Boetti - Arte Povera - Conceptual Art - tapestries - maps
Alighiero Boetti - Conceptual Art
Conceptual Art sets out to overcome painting-painting in favor of idea-painting or conceptual painting. In other words, in Conceptual Art it is more important the gestation of the work and the programming of its execution. It is therefore an art thought, reasoned rather than felt. Execution becomes a fact of pure assembly of objects that form the work. Of course the visual aspect does not disappear completely as traces of painting are often found among the authors, but they are traces of painting put in a certain order that springs from the artist's thought. A precursor of Conceptual Art is considered Marchel Duchamp with his famous "urinal". At moment among the great artists of Conceptual Art we put Emilio Isgrò with yours Erasion.
Tags: Conceptual Art - Emilio Isgrò - Erasion
Alighiero Boetti - Analisi di Mercato
April 2017. It is now from the early 2000s that the works of Alighiero Boetti are constantly on the rise and this applies to any type of works but especially to tapestries that now reach very high figures depending on the size and rarity of the processing and the phrase. To give an idea, the "Maps" now exceed one million euros while for common tapestries, certainly not rare, the price is around 50,000 euros for dimensions of about 30x30 cm. below are some auction results.
Christie's Amsterdam, auction 12 April 2017. Title: Silence is golden. Technique: embroidery on canvas. Measurements: cm 17,5x18,5. Year: 1988. Estimate € 18-22.000. Result, including rights, € 32,500
Christie's Milano, auction 27/28 April 2017. Title: Order and disorder. Technique: embroidery on canvas. Measurements: cm 54x52. Year: 1977. Estimate € 50-70,000. Result, including rights, € 304,400
Sotheby's Milano, auction 4/5 May 2017. Title: The infinite possibilities of existing. technique: tapestry. Measurements: cm 33,5x34,5. Year: 1990. Estimate: € 35-45.000. Result, including rights, € 75,000
January 2022. The rise in Boetti's prices continues unabated. To give a number, today a colored tapestry measuring approximately 22x55 cm costs between 50,000 and 55,000 euros. As for the works on paper, after the collapse of the prices we have seen in recent years, the feeling that we have is of their recovery; however, we are waiting for what will happen in the coming months.
Alighiero Boetti - Contributi
Boetti's figurative thought focuses on research and discovery, the similar and the different: order is to disorder as randomness to necessity. Jean-Christophe Ammann
Embroidery based on the squaring of words is not just a manual activity, color is not just a material. We understand that here flows energy that unequivocally affects perception. And that makes these works pulsate. Jean-Christophe Ammann
How one should understand "Melting like snow in the sun". To whom was addressed my thoughts at the time I don't know anymore. Surely it was a lady, a woman. After all, you melt with warmth and warmth is what you receive with love, with erotic tension, with being emotional. All of this is energy, energy equals heat and the heat melts the snow
Tags: Boetti - Alighiero Boetti