Alighiero BoettiAerei, 1989

Ink on photo paper laid down on canvas

99 x 198 cm

About the artist

Over the course of his career, Alighiero Boetti gave increasing importance to the creative concept, the investigation of culture and society through the idea. Boetti was born in Turin in 1940 and by 1966 had become associated with a group of artists whose groundbreaking work Germano Celant would feature in his exhibition “Arte Povera” in 1967. Through the use of everyday materials, the Arte Povera aesthetic sought an immediate connection with real life. These artists shared an intense interest in destabilizing the dominant structures behind the “false” realities of consumer-capitalism. In keeping with his political philosophy, Boetti renamed himself Alighiero e Boetti to expose the underlying structure present in one’s own identity as expressed in the dual nature of the self and the name. He said: “While a name is unique, a surname is already a category, a means of classification . . .” Bipolarities permeate Boetti’s thought: part and whole; half and double; full and empty; order and disorder; addition and subtraction; Alighiero and Boetti. Boetti sought throughout his career to uncover the duality of structure. Boetti’s solo exhibitions include: Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; The Venice Biennale; Kunstverein Münster; Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Grenoble; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; DIA Center for the Arts, New York; The Institute for Contemporary Art P.S.1 Museum, New York; Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin; Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; and Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. Alighiero e Boetti died in 1994.

About the artist

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