Alighiero Boetti
Self-taught, he approaches art after having abandoned his economic studies. At twenty he begins to paint. He studies and practices engraving, experimenting with alternative materials.
He made his debut with a solo show in Turin in 1967 and participated in all the collective exhibitions of the Arte Povera group (Turin, Milan, Genoa). He creates works using materials such as metal, glass, wood and concrete. The exhibitions follow one another at a fast pace: solo, in Milan, and collective, in Rome, Bologna and Turin.
Following a series of trips, he elects
Afghanistan as a second home. His first embroidery on fabric was born in Kabul and here the project of the work Mappa, the planisphere of the world in which each nation is woven with the colors of its own flag, preserved in the Castello di Rivoli will be realized. He begins the creation of embroideries based on the squaring of words and phrases, such as Order and disorder.
In 1972 he moved to Rome. He begins to sign himself "Alighiero and Boetti", thus completing the squaring of his name and surname, which becomes 16 letters, and at the same time his symbolic split between the private sphere, the name, and the public sphere, the surname. He participates in the XXXVI Venice Biennale, and exhibits with his first two solo shows in New York.
In 1978 it was the turn of the artist's great anthology at the Kunsthalle in Basel. In 1980 he exhibited in New York, London, at the Venice Biennale and in Tokyo for a solo show, as well as in other Italian galleries.
