21.02.09 | 11.05.09

Oeuvre postale 1993 Alternating One to One Hundred and Vice Versa 1993 Anno 1990 (Year 1990) 1990 Mappa 1989 - 1992 Cartoline astratte 1987 Codice: Eritrea libera 1975 La Mole Antonelliana 1973 - 1975 Serie di merli disposti a intervalli regolari lungo gli spalti di una muraglia ( Serie di merli disposti a intervalli regolari lungo gli spalti di una muraglia 1971 - 1993 Permutazione e disegni (Lavoro Postale) 1973 Autodisporsi (Lavoro postale) (Placing oneself – Postal work) 1972 Otto lettere dall'Afghanistan Otto lettere dall'Afganistan 1972 Viaggi Postali 1969 - 1970 Dossier Postale (Postal dossier) 1970 - 1971 Lampada annuale 1966 Niente da vedere nulla da nascondere 1969 / 1986 Colonna 1968 Mimetico 1967 12 forme a partire dal 10 giugno 1967 1967 - 1971 Territori occupati Territori occupati 1969 Ordine e disordine 1973 Gemelli 1968 Shaman Showman 1968 Io che prendo il sole a Torino il 19 Gennaio 1969 1969 / 1992 Cimento dell'armonia e dell'invenzione 1969 Strumento musicale 1970 The Sighted 1967 Pile 1966 Untitled (Radial Turntable, Zenithal Turntable) 1969 Untitled (Stella Performance) 1969 Petite composition en bois 1962 Senza Titolo 1965 Untitled 1965 Insicuro noncurante 1972 - 1976 Mettere al mondo il mondo 1972 - 1973 Onomino 1973 Iter-vallo 1969 / 1986 AEB 197 la metà e il doppio 1974 Autodisporsi 1974 Autodisporsi 1974 Storia naturale della moltiplicazione 1974 - 1975 Ciò che sempre parla in silenzio è il corpo 1975 Tracce del racconto 1976 I sei sensi 1973 Il dolce far niente 1975 Order and disorder 1979 Vento 1985 Wind 1985 The thousand longest rivers in the world - project 1975 Classifying, the thousand longest rivers in the world 1977 Nature, an obtuse matter 1980 Twenty-five times twenty-five six-hundred twenty-five letters 1988 La natura, una faccenda ottusa[Nature, an obtuse matter] 1980 Animal Kingdom – Within oneself 1978 Musical Kingdom – Within oneself 1979 Kingdom of maps – Within oneself 1979 Tra sé e sé [Within oneself] 1987 Everything) 1988 Self-portrait 1993 / 1996

Alighiero Boetti

AW:AB=L:MD

1967

Courtesy :

As often happens with Boetti’s works, the title is a paradoxical and tautological explanation of the content of the work, translated here using an algebra equation. Duchamp put a moustache on the Monalisa and Boetti draws beard and moustache on Andy Warhol’s picture of Jacqueline Kennedy. Which is why Andy Warhol means to Alighiero Boetti what Leonardo da Vinci meant to Marcel Duchamp. This work, which the artist produced in several different versions, is a reflection on an image’s claim to originality. What really counts, in fact, is the potentially infinite opportunity to intervene or deform the image. As Giovan Battista Salerno wrote in 1978: «An image, like biological organisms, has its own specific phylogenesis, which is a bit like the history of art for artists. The Monalisa for example, was such a powerful painting that it almost remained unharmed [...] by the enormous wave of publicity it received which transformed it into some kind of myth. The Monalisa became a proverb, a symbol of painting and beauty and was about to fade into the collective order and memory when Duchamp added a beard and moustache to his own reproduction of the painting creating a likeness which bordered on deterioration.»

Torino 1940 | Roma 1994
I always find myself talking about the notion of double, which […] is present in all my work. The truth is that it is a natural reality: it is incontrovertible that a cell ...
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