Turin, 1940 – Rome, 1994

Alighiero Boetti – or Alighiero e Boetti as he signed himself from 1971 – was born in Turin where he made his debut in January 1967 with a solo exhibition at the Galleria Christian Stein in Turin.

One of the main exponents of Arte Povera, in 1972 he moved to Rome, a city more akin to him, and directed his work towards increasingly conceptual and versatile research. Numerous techniques are in fact used to create his works, the execution of which, as with embroidery or ‘biro’ pen artworks, is often delegated with precise rules to other subjects, following a principle of randomness.

A great lover of travel, from his first trip in 1971, Boetti was so fascinated by Afghanistan that he periodically returned there for long stays until 1979 when the Soviet occupation prevented access. It was to the embroiderers of Kabul that Boetti entrusted his tapestries and ‘Mappe’ [Maps], colourful planispheres that he would repropose over the years as a register of the world’s political changes. After the closure of the country in 1979, he moved the production of tapestries to Peshawar, employing Afghan women who had taken refuge in Pakistan.

Alighiero Boetti’s production is decidedly multifaceted, both in terms of the use of various techniques and the themes tackled, as well as the variety of types of works he passionately worked on from the 1980s until his death.

Boetti’s exhibition activity both in Italy and abroad is also intense; he is present several times at the Venice Biennale, with a solo room in 1990 and a posthumous homage in 2001. Among the most significant exhibitions in recent years, there is the large travelling retrospective at the MoMA in New York, the Tate in London and the Reina Sofia in Madrid. He died at his home in Rome on 24 April 1994.