Alighero Boetti, a collection of unpublished materials
Curated by Gail Cochrane, Mario Della Vedova, Amedeo Martegani and Luca Pancrazzi
Alighiero Boetti (1940 – 1994), one of the most widely recognised figures on both the national and international scenes, is the artist to whom the second edition of Giorno per giorno is dedicated, held as it was from 20th to 29th May 2011 in Turin and in venues around Piedmont.
Reflecting a desire to put together a shared programme focussing on the figure of the well-known Turin-born artist, major institutions around Piedmont – under the coordination of Artissima – have put together a diverse calendar with exhibitions, video screenings, meetings and conferences.
The journeys in Afghanistan are the theme that the Fondazione Spinola Banna of Poirino investigates in Boetti e l’Oriente (‘Boetti and the Orient’).The exhibition, curated by Gail Cochrane, Mario Della Vedova, Amedeo Martegani and Luca Pancrazzi, features a documentary video with footage of this journey through Afghanistan with Alighiero Boetti, as presented by the selfsame figures who undertook this experience with him and who witnessed firsthand his way of working in those years and his alternative means of communicating. It was mainly in those years that Boetti put together a series of systems within which to act, often involving other people as well.
The exhibition will present the public with previously unseen material, mostly photographic, which is also to be found in the book ‘Alighero Boetti, Materiali inediti raccolti’ (‘a collection of unpublished materials’).
This material was supplied by a number of key figures who had long been close to Boetti, as well as several artists who emerged in the late ‘80s, who not only acknowledge how much the artist’s work was seminal in terms of its openness of language and its influence on their own artistic practices, but who also underwent a difficult stage in his career with him, in terms both of critical acclaim and market success, sharing numerous journeys and experiences, as well as implementing a range of other projects with him.
