To all girls and boys, each of whom are capable of reinventing the world
On December 16, 1940, an artist was born who was able to bring the world into the world.
Alighiero Boetti was born in Turin, Italy where he immediately became interested in many different subjects, from music to mathematics, from geography to spirituality. When he was just a little more than 20 years old, he started to visit important galleries together with other young artists. Like them, Alighiero created works of art using every day materials, apparently “poor” elements which, when observed from a different perspective, had the power to reveal new meanings.
Germano Celant defined this artistic movement as “Poor Art,” referring to a way of expressing oneself through common objects found in everyday life, as well as through those salvaged from industry and obtained from nature.
Alighiero used all kinds of things, such as lamps, pieces of iron, cardboard, cloth and pipes. He loved stacking them, playing with their shapes and arranging them in a curious theater of objects.
In 1967, Alighiero presented his first solo exhibition. Among the various works, he included a lamp that was turned on only once during the year, for 11 seconds! Some of his ideas were so simple that they were brilliant, like Ping Pong where two neon lights with the words PING and PONG lit up in alternating sequence. Just like a ball hit back and forth by a racket.
For Alighiero creating was a way to reinvent reality and upset the rules of the game, often with just a minimal gesture. Such as in the work Iter-vallo, where he alternated heavy black iron tiles with squares of light white tissue paper in the form of a large chessboard.
Everything attracted the curiosity of Alighiero, who knew he could make art out of anything. For example, when invited by an art gallery in Rome he built three columns with thousands of paper pastry napkins.
At another gallery in Rome Alighiero created a sky! He set up a large frame covered with blue paper and placed lights behind it. Then he gave some nails to the people who were around and asked them to make holes in the paper. Once the lights were turned on, the work lit up like a vault full of stars. Alighiero had given everyone the opportunity to create their own constellation!
After all, he was a bit of a magician and a brilliant entertainer capable of creating dazzling scenes with very simple tricks, such as writing with two hands at the same time to the right and to the left. He used to say, “Writing with the left is drawing!”
Alighiero was a real showman, as he loved to call himself. In fact, many times he used his own image to create works, such as in the montage with 2 photos of him: 2 almost identical Alighieros, like twins shaking hands.
In the early 70ies, he also began to play with his own name: AB; ABEEGHIIILOORTT; AELLEIGIACCAIEERREOBIOETITII… up to the point of splitting it, separating his first name from his last name and from then on signing ALIGHIERO e BOETTI, that is, Alighiero and Boetti. What a mystery that e is! It added and separated…
During those years Alighiero also began to reflect on time, especially attracted by its flow. He wrote “1978” on a board with the subtitle “art in ten years” and he titled it Il tempo che lavora (Time at Work), as if to say that time itself was the artist and its passing is the work of art.
Fascinated also by dates, Alighiero even imagined that of his own death. He created two adjacent embroidered works, one with the inscription “December 16 2040” and the other with the inscription “July 11 2023,” the dates of his 100 th birthday and the presumed day of his death.
Then he wrote a few phrases from various writers in quick-setting concrete, but there was no time to finish them because the mixture dried too quickly. Just that! Time really fascin ated hi m. In fi n itely
In 1969, Alighiero took part in an important exhibition in Switzerland. Among the various works he showed Alighiero prende il sole a Torino il 24-2-1969 (Alighiero Sunbathing in Turin on 24-2-1969), in which he represented himself as a bunch of concrete balls he molded in his hand and on top of which he placed a butterfly.
A decisive step in Alighiero’s career also took place that year. He stopped using the bulky materials he had worked with until then and began to use ordinary sheets of graph paper. This was how he created his work Cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione (The Test of Harmony and Invention). With a simple pencil Alighiero outlined all of the squares on the paper, a feat of patience and concentration which lasted a good 42 hours!
In 1969, he began another important project which revealed his passion for games and travel: Viaggi postali (Postal Travels). Alighiero began to send letters with invented addresses to friends, acquaintances and even to his newborn son Matteo. Of course, the letters never arrived and each envelope was promptly returned to the sender. Alighiero then put them in larger envelopes which he resent. Shortly thereafter, he also decided to play with stamps, arranging them in various combinations.
Travel and geography were true sources of inspiration for him. Fascinated by an old world map, Alighiero began to fill in the countries with the drawn colors and images of their respective flags. It was then that he developed the idea of what would soon become one of his most famous projects: Mappe (Maps).
In addition to tracing, in those years Alighiero began to “square words.” He created compact phrases in the form of a square that could be read from left to right, from top to bottom and vice versa.
At that time, Alighiero began to create his artworks using ballpoint pens, which was a real revolution for an artist who, instead of a brush, chose to paint with just a pen! But there’s more… Alighiero entrusted his drawings to the hands of others, ordinary people, even children, whom he sometimes did not even know.
Another secret code he devised was to write with commas on paper notepads, placing them next to a horizontal or vertical row of letters, scattering them seemingly at random, like raindrops. However, each comma was actually linked to a letter
and following those mysterious leads a phrase was revealed, such as in Mettere al mondo il mondo (Bringing the World into the World), one of his most famous works.
In 1971 he left for Afghanistan, a mythical place with which he fell in love. Fascinated by Giovanni Battista Boetti, one of his ancestors who was a missionary there in the 18th century, Alighiero explored the country extensively and found many ideas for his art. The most important was the technique of embroidery, which he used with a group of local embroiderers in order to apply his projects to fabric, like the famous Maps.
In Kabul he bought a small house which he called One Hotel, as it consisted of only one room, and he entrusted its management to a young local man named Dastaghir. People called him Alì Ghiero because he had such a passion for Afghanistan that remained in his heart for the rest of his life.
Alighiero was able to draw inspiration from anything that caught his attention. One day, while watching a plane flying with his daughter Agata, he was captivated by the thought of a space in which hundreds of planes circled. With this in mind, he had three huge blue skies created that were crowded with white airplanes.
Even the events that happened in the world were for him a continuous source of ideas. For example, in Orme (Footprints) he stuck torn pieces of newspapers and letters on two large surfaces, sprinkled color on them and then walked on it with the stride of a tightrope walker.
Playing with his own image was a practice that Alighiero never abandoned. In one of his last works, Autoritratto (Self-Portrait), he is depicted as a bronze sculpture with a stream of water being sprayed on his head which is activated by a hydraulic system and an electric device. Here Alighiero manages to include all the elements: earth, air, water and fire. All of them! Just as they are all present in the world.
This is also the case in another one of his famous works, Tutto (Everything), which is a sort of puzzle full of figures mixed in a swirling colorful chaos, but ordered according to the precise rules of a game. A game where all the elements are to be discovered, reinvented and overturned. Just like Alighiero did.
Did you know that a square has even been named after Alighiero?
It’s the outdoor area belonging to the MAXXI in Rome: the museum wanted to dedicate one of its liveliest and most popular spaces to him.
Fondazione MAXXI
Public Service Quality
Laura Neto (Head)
Stefania Calandriello
Technical Office
Elisabetta Virdia (Head)
President
Giovanna Melandri
Administrative Board
Caterina Cardona
Piero Lissoni
Carlo Tamburi
Monique Veaute
Secretary of the Administrative Board
Laura Gabellone
Board of Advisors
Paolo Palombelli
Claudia Colaiacomo
Goffredo Hinna Danesi
Deputy magistrate of Court of Auditors
Andrea Zacchia
Artistic Director
Hou Hanru
Executive Director
Pietro Barrera
Executive Office of the President and General Secretariat
Laura Gabellone (Head)
Flavia Bagni (Assistant to the President)
Federica Cipullo
Cecilia Festa
Chiara Sbocchia
Raffaella Tebano
Angela Cherubini (Legal Service-Lawyer)
Alessio Rosati (Institutional Projects)
Donatella Saroli (Assistant to the Artistic Director)
Accounts, Administration and Finance Office
Rossana Samaritani (Head)
Silvia Affinita
Francesca Civitenga
Eleonora Magri
Giuseppa Sparla
Cristina Andreassi
Paola Mastracci
Claudio Tamburrini
Michele Sestini
Head of Prevention and Protection Service
Livio Della Seta
Location Physician
Barbara Valente
Workers’ Health and Safety Representative
Cristina Andreassi
MAXXI ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Architecture
Director
Margherita Guccione
Senior Curator
Pippo Ciorra
Elena Tinacci (Coordination)
Chiara Castiglia (Assistant to the Director)
Collection Office
Laura Felci (Head of Architecture and Special Projects)
Alessandra Spagnoli (International Projects)
Andrea Di Nezio
Simona Antonacci (Head of Photography)
Flavia Parisi
Conservation and Registrars’ Office
Viviana Vignoli (Registrar)
Serena Zuliani (Conservation)
Architecture Archives Centre
Carla Zhara Buda (Head)
Angela Parente
Claudia Torrini
Domitilla Dardi (Design Curator)
MAXXI ART DEPARTMENT
National Museum of Contemporary Art Director
Bartolomeo Pietromarchi
Giulia Mastropietro (Assistant to the Director)
Eleonora Farina (Curator)
Heritage and Catalog Office
Ilenia D’Ascoli (Head)
Maura Favero
Giulia Lopalco
Art Archives and Documentation Office
Giulia Pedace (Head)
Giulia Cappelletti (Cataloging)
Valeria Dellino (Image Licensing)
Conservation and Restoration Office
Simona Brunetti (Head)
Maria Cristina Lanza
Stefania Montorsi
Marta Sorrentino
Registrars’ Office
Roberta Magagnini (Head)
Marta Cesaretti
INTERDEPARTMENTAL OFFICES
Monia Trombetta (Head)
Curatorial Office
Monia Trombetta (Head)
Giulia Ferracci (Curator)
Luigia Lonardelli (Curator)
Elena Motisi (Curator)
Anne Palopoli (Curator)
Valeria Dellino (Curator Assistant)
Donatella Saroli (Research)
Exhibition Design Office
Monia Trombetta (Head)
Silvia La Pergola (Senior Architect – Coordination with Technical Office)
Dolores Lettieri (Senior Architect)
Benedetta Marinucci (Architect)
Claudia Reale (Senior Architect)
Benedetto Turcano (Architect)
Interim Director
Pietro Barrera
Publishing Office
Flavia De Sanctis Mangelli (Head)
Chiara Braidotti
Maria Pia Verzillo
Public Programs Office
Irene De Vico Fallani (Head)
Stefano Gobbi
Giulia Lopalco
Library
Francesco Longo (Head)
Jacopo De Blasio
Education Office
Marta Morelli (Head)
Giovanna Cozzi
Stefania Napolitano
Public engagement
Sofia Bilotta (Head)
Work Experience and Career Exploration Programme
Federico Borzelli (Head – MAXXI A[r]t Work project)
Training Office
Marzia Ortolani
Andrea Di Nezio
Interim Director
Giovanna Melandri
Lucia Urciuoli (Coordination of the Department)
Chiara Calabresi (Special Projects)
Press Office
Beatrice Fabbretti (Head of Press Office)
Flaminia Persichetti
Communication Office
Prisca Cupellini (Head of Communication)
Eleonora Colizzi
Cecilia Fiorenza
Giulia Chiapparelli
Olivia Salmistrari
Paolo Le Grazie (Head)
Leandro Banchetti
Ludovica Persichetti
Viola Porfirio
Maria Carolina Profilo (Head)
Andree Cristini
Cristiana Guillot
Beatrice Iori
Giulia Zappone
MAXXI L’AQUILA
Interim Director
Bartolomeo Pietromarchi
FRIENDS OF MAXXI
President
Alessia Antinori
Platinum
Adriana and Lodovico Rocca
Gold
Alessia Antinori
Roberta Armani
Enzo Benigni – Founder Donor
Annibale Berlingieri – Founder Donor
Renata Boccanelli
Flaminia Cerasi
Alessandra Cerasi Barillari – Founder Donor
Pilar Crespi Robert – Founder Donor
Anna d’Amelio Carbone – Founder Donor
Fabrizio and Elisabetta Di Amato
Erminia Di Biase – Founder Donor
Chicca Donnamaria
Yohan Benjamin Fadlun
Annette Gilka
Pepi Marchetti Franchi
Daniela Memmo d’Amelio
Francesco Micheli
Noemia Osorio d’Amico – Founder Donor
Ugo Ossani and Manuela Morgano Ossani
Marina Palma
Mirella Petteni Haggiag
Stefano Russo
Giuseppe and Benedetta Scassellati Sforzolini
Isabella Seràgnoli
Massimo Sterpi – Founder Donor
Luisa Todini
Silver
Mariolina Bassetti
Cristina Bastianello Ottieri
Lavinia Borea Carnacini
Massimo and Lorenza Caputi
Claudia Cornetto Bourlot
Emanuela Da Rin
Iolanda de Blasio
Luigi de Vecchi
Paola De Vincenti
Raffaella Docimo
Sabrina Florio
Marion Franchetti
Galleria Franco Noero
Benedetta Geronzi
Valentina Impallomeni
Eleonora Inguaggiato Musumeci
Roberto Lombardi
Benedetta Lucherini
Paola Lucisano
Matteo Marenghi Vaselli
Patrizia Memmo
Francesco Modesti
Vincenzo Morichini – Founder Donor
Gianluca Perrella
Chiara Pozzilli
Salvatore Puglisi Cosentino
Antonella Romiti
Federica Tittarelli Cerasi – Founder Donor
Ludovica Tosti di Valminuta
Hendrik and Giacinta van Riel – International Friend
Young
Giovanna dell’Erba
Maria Fabiana Marenghi Vaselli
Honorary Members
Gabriella Buontempo
Grazia Gian Ferrari
Paola Gian Ferrari Braghiroli
Piero Sartogo
President
Ginevra Caltagirone
Board of Directors
Enrica Arengi Bentivoglio
Ginevra Caltagirone
Pilar Crespi Robert
Giorgio Gallenzi
Alessandra Rampogna
Giorgio Spanu
Massimo Sterpi
Gold
Francesca Bodini
Nancy Cain Marcus
Beatrice Del Favero
Kathy and Steven Guttman
Lisa Hedley
Andrew Lauren
Julie Minskoff
Claudine Nussdorf
Maribel Reyes
Nina Runsdorf
Carol Saper
Zach Sherman
Brian S. Snyder
Alice and Tommy Tisch
Leah Weiseberg
Silver
Peter B. Brandt
We wish to thank all the donors who have chosen to remain anonymous
Alighiero Boetti
Piccoli MAXXI
Text
Eloisa Guarracino
Illustrations
Serena Mabilia
Head of Publishing
Flavia De Sanctis Mangelli
Editorial Assistant
Maria Pia Verzillo
Proofreading
Chiara Braidotti
Translated by Jonathan Brys Bibee
Printed in Italy by Arti Grafiche Castello, Viadana (MN), October 2021
Printed on Fedrigoni Paper
Arena White Smooth
for the text © 2021 Eloisa Guarracino for the illustrations © 2021 Serena Mabilia for the book © 2021 Fondazione MAXXI for the book © 2021 RI RAUM Italic Bücher, Grafik und Design GmbH All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Founding Members
Published by RI RAUM Italic Bücher, Grafik und Design GmbH, Berlin info@raumitalic.com www.raumitalic.com
Distributed by Corraini Edizioni www.corraini.com
We would like to thank Agata Boetti, Simone Ciglia, Chiara Cottone, Luigia Lonardelli and our little readers: Bianca, Cecilia, Livia, Ludovico and Riccardo.