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 AW:AB=L:MD 1967 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 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

Animal Kingdom – Within oneself

1978

Courtesy :

Tra sé e sé of 1987 is a large work developing through 11 elements, the first and last of which represent the silhouette of the artist’s head and of his hands holding a pencil. The original idea of this image originates in 1976 from a series of photographs taken by Gianfranco Gorgoni, which Boetti uses as a starting point to create a new cycle of works in which he returns to the work done in his studio, brings the time of conception and making of the work back together and once again takes control over all the stages of work, involving fewer people in the actual realisation of the work.
The very title of the work hints at this more intimate dimension. A mental space opens up between two heads and four hands, represented by that very uninterrupted line that is the thread of thought, where the artist, on his own, places drawings, collages and words or sentences written with his left hand. Here too, one may comment: tra sé e sé (in Italian, literally, between one’s self and one’s self), but still two.
The heads placed at the two ends of the work make up a sort of frame, a framing which the artist feels the need for since his first China ink works in 1965 and, earlier than that, in the Petite combustion en bois of 1962 enclosed in a double passepartout (the title of a large fibreglass floor mosaic of 1990). The uninterrupted frieze-like structure and the repetition of a few iconographic elements recall the orders or decorative function of ancient architecture or applied arts, a tradition that the artist now identifies as the lieu for artistic creation par excellence. In 1988 he explains: « I realised that we have a huge power in our hands: that is, inventing the world, bringing the world into the world. The Etruscans did well when they made leaves blue: painting a leaf blue is an act of invention of the world: green leaves exist already as such in the kingdom of things and hence would be less interesting a representation. So we come to the concept of decoration, seen as an instrument to upset things in order to invent them.»
 

Musical Kingdom – Within oneself

1979

Kingdom of maps – Within oneself

1979

Tra sé e sé [Within oneself]

1987

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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