Alighiero Boetti at the MoMA
July 12, 2012

NEW YORK CITY—The MoMA in New York is hosting one of the largest presentations of work by Italian artist, Alighiero Boetti in United States. The exhibit brings together nearly 100 works, celebrating the artist’s long and varied career.

Born in 1940 Turin, Italy, Boetti, emerged as a leader of the 1960’s Italian movement Arte Povera, known for the production of art using recycled and found materials. The show features these works and many more. Much of Boetti’s art is based on the idea that artists should not invent, but instead use preexisting objects from the world to make art.

This career retrospective entitled, “Game Plan,” opened July 1st is curated by MoMA’s Christian Rattemeyer and traveled to New York from the Tate Modern of London. The show highlights the endless experimentation and reoccurring motifs of order and disorder, non-invention, travel and time within Boetti’s work.

“Game Plan” features some of Boetti’s most recognizable works, including his Mappe (Maps), a tapestry series of colorful interpretations of the world map worked on from 1969 to the end of his career. Many of these works were created by Afghan artisans, as were the word square tapestries, called arazzi. The exhibit also includes less famous works such as Tra sé e sé (Between Self and Self), 1987, which portrays Boetti’s theme of the two selves, seen much throughout the body of work for this artist who sometimes referred to himself as Alighiero e Boetti.

Image Alighiero Boetti, Mappa (Map), 1979 courtesy of the MoMA