Alighiero BOETTI (1940-1994) - Lot 113

Alighiero BOETTI (1940-1994) Uno a zero, 1977 Embroidery, signed and dated 77 on back. 22 x 20 cm On the back, a handwritten label stating Studio la Citta Via Dietro Filippini Verona Alighiero E BOETTI arazzo 1977 20 x 22 cm, with gallery stamp. Provenance: Studio La Citta, Verona A certificate from Archivio Alighiero Boetti dated July 18, 2025 will be given to the buyer. Alighiero Boetti's "Uno a Zero", created in 1977, occupies a special place in the artist's career. Made in Afghanistan, this embroidery illustrates the complex, multicolored character of the Arazzi, his most famous series. Boetti's interest in this popular Afghan art began on his first trip to Kabul in 1971, when he enlisted the help of local workers to carry out his instructions. This Arazzi production was moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For Alighiero Boetti, the term "edition" takes on a particular meaning, always designating a series of unique copies, which the artist himself described as "singular multiples". Hand-crafted, these works feature variations in color, detail or the very gesture of execution, giving each its own identity within a coherent whole. Our 1977 work comes at a time when Boetti, already recognized and widely exhibited in Europe, was going through a phase of great creativity. This was the artist's eleventh trip to Afghanistan, where he was accompanied by his son Matteo, then aged seven, and his friend Dastaghir. "Uno a Zero" is distinguished by its deeply intellectual approach to mathematics and numerical systems. The title itself, which means "One to Zero", echoes a reflection on the relationship between order and chaos. Fascinated by mathematics, Boetti's ambition was to create a mosaic-like grid in which letters and numbers would be organized in an apparently disorderly fashion, but in reality governed by precise logical rules. This conception recalls the principles of the "magic squares" Boetti likes to work on, where the sums of the lines and diagonals are equal. "These tapestries are constructed like magic squares, in the sense that one must first recognize their system in order to be able to read them correctly." (Rolf Lauter, "La manifestazione del mondo nell'opera di Alighiero Boetti", in Mettere al mondo il mondo, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 139-141). This notion of illusory chaos, concealing a profound order, is a constant in his work, and "Uno a Zero" is a formidable illustration of this. Our work was probably sold in the 1980s to the owners' family by the Studio La Città Gallery in Verona, in an exhibition organized in March 1985 or in 1988 (20 anni fa, 1968). Only one other embroidery entitled "Uno a Zero" is known to date, sold in 2022 by Phillips London (lot 168), the text of which is legible vertically. The Alighiero Boetti Archive Committee has kindly confirmed that our Arazzo is the only one known to be horizontally legible.