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Lot Essay
This work is accompanied by a photo-certificate of authenticity from the Archivio Alighiero Boetti Rome, dated 30 September 2005 and numbered 673.
Executed in 1983, Mappa forms part of Boetti's most iconic and celebrated series of works, the Maps of the World. An updated adaptation of his Planisfero politico from 1969, Mappa shows the flags, and therefore affiliations, of the world set out in diagrammatic means, as though it were an aid from a geography class. Yet unlike the Planisfero politico, it is here presented in lush embroidery, surrounded by lyrical inscriptions in Italian and Farsi. In Boetti's hands, the subject matter itself has taken on a subversive tone. Boetti is questioning the human necessity to impose arbitrary categorisations on the world around us, be it through flags and borders, or through science or language.
Like the original source for the Planisfero politico, the information within the Mappa is not inspired or created by Boetti. Likewise, he has not embroidered the work. This object is something that has evolved and come into creation organically, a direct product of the world made flesh without Boetti's direct intervention. The artist is a mere catalyst, a medium channelling a wider force in the world. To Boetti, this was sublime:
'To my mind, the work of the embroidered map represents the supreme beauty. For these works, I made nothing, selected nothing in the sense that the world is made the way it is and I have not drawn it; the flags are those that exist anyway, I did not draw them; all in all, I have made absolutely nothing. Once the basic idea is there, the concept, then everything else is already chosen' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in exh. cat., Alighiero Boetti: Mettere al mondo il mondo, Frankfurt, 1998, p. 69).
By allowing the arbitrary systems of order at large in the world around us to dictate the form of the Mappa, he has brought into existence something that is directly symptomatic of the human thought processes that so fascinated him. For Boetti was interested in humanity's insistence on imposing mental constructs onto the world in order to make it more manageable for our minds. The arbitrary borders and flags of the nations of our planet rank alongside language or games as artificial means of breaking the world down into bite-size chunks that the human brain can more easily comprehend. They invoke abstract logics into the world: 'I am interested in primary matters,' Boetti said, 'such as the alphabet, the map, the newspapers, among other things owing to the spring which thus tautens between order and disorder. There is an exact order innate in each and every thing, even if it manifests itself in a disorderly manner' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in Ibid., 1998, p. 29). This disorder is revealed in the tangle of border skirmishes, in the changes of territories and flags, and in general in the state of flux in which the world exists, a condition that fascinated Boetti.
In the case of the Mappa, the flaws of the arbitrary system of navigating our understanding of the planet are made all the more explicit by the ever-changing political world that this adaptation of the Planisfero politico shows. Boetti's interest in maps as subject matter, as superficial signifiers of vast human turmoil, was first made explicit in his prints, Dodici forme dal giugno '67. There, diagram maps from the front pages of a dozen newspapers from a dozen different days are shown, stripped of all the writing except their date of publication. Yet these amoeba-like shapes, rendered incongruous by their lack of context, resulted from troubles throughout the world, representing as they did Northern Ireland, the Middle East and other such places. 'I was well aware' he stated, 'that these drawings did not come out of my imagination but from artillery bombardments, air raids, and diplomatic negotiations' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in P. Morsiani, exh. cat., When 1 is 2: The Art of Alighiero e Boetti, Houston, 2002, p. 18). In Mappa, Boetti uses this same realisation to point to the arbitrary and artificial nature of human reasoning on one level, but also to the issues of the day, to the wars and regime changes obliquely charted through the ever-changing face of the world map.
Mappa is all the more pointed and poignant as evidence of the real effects of such changes in the world because from 1983, the year it was made, the Afghan weavers who embroidered Boetti's works were based in Peshawar in Pakistan, having escaped the turmoil of the Russian invasion of their homeland. The words at the bottom of Mappa implies that this was one of the last to be created in Kabul itself (if Mappa was made in Peshawar, then Boetti's Italian inscription must have predated their status as refugees: their weaving of their city's name would be a tragic irony that only serves to further underline this). The Mappa itself is therefore evidence of the transient nature of earthly power. Following on from Dodici forme dal giugno '67, Boetti's Mappa subversively challenges the authorities of the world, challenging the governments, belittling them. The fact that Mappa is one of several such maps created over the course of over twenty years means that the different examples reveal the subtle changes to the flags and boundaries of the nations of the world, the political map changing at a far greater pace than the tectonic shifts of the continents. There is a warning to authority in Mappa, a memento mori for the governments of our planet. Yet Mappa, the harmonious product of cooperation between Boetti and Afghan weavers, between West and East, transcends these petty concerns, transcends its own cynicism and instead acts as an invitation for its viewers to be as bright and optimistic as the colours of its threads.
Despite the focus on the arbitrary order inherent in the world, and despite Boetti's insistence that his maps are self-created without his intervention, Mappa is noteworthy for its poetic Italian inscription. Boetti allowed his embroiderers free rein to include Farsi phrases (Rolf Lauter translates the Farsi in this Mappa as, 'May Alighiero sleep with many open eyes' on the left, and 'May you spread luck and embrace the people' on the right). This increased the distance between the artist and his work. Yet the Italian pulls Boetti very much back into the equation. In a letter to Lauter, Boetti discussed the inscription on this particular Mappa:
'How one should understand 'Sciogliersi come neve al sole pensando a te a noi' ('Melting like the snow in the sun in thoughts of you, of us'): Whom I was addressing my thoughts to back then, I no longer know. Most certainly it was a lady, a woman. After all, you melt because of heat and heat is what you receive with love, with erotic tension, with emotional being. All of this is energy. Energy = heat and heat melts the snow (the white)' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in op.cit., 1998, p. 73).
In this way, Mappa is saturated in themes of impermanence, be it in the form of the geo-political powers of the world, of the wealth implied by the embroidery itself, or in the life and personal desires of the artist himself.
Executed in 1983, Mappa forms part of Boetti's most iconic and celebrated series of works, the Maps of the World. An updated adaptation of his Planisfero politico from 1969, Mappa shows the flags, and therefore affiliations, of the world set out in diagrammatic means, as though it were an aid from a geography class. Yet unlike the Planisfero politico, it is here presented in lush embroidery, surrounded by lyrical inscriptions in Italian and Farsi. In Boetti's hands, the subject matter itself has taken on a subversive tone. Boetti is questioning the human necessity to impose arbitrary categorisations on the world around us, be it through flags and borders, or through science or language.
Like the original source for the Planisfero politico, the information within the Mappa is not inspired or created by Boetti. Likewise, he has not embroidered the work. This object is something that has evolved and come into creation organically, a direct product of the world made flesh without Boetti's direct intervention. The artist is a mere catalyst, a medium channelling a wider force in the world. To Boetti, this was sublime:
'To my mind, the work of the embroidered map represents the supreme beauty. For these works, I made nothing, selected nothing in the sense that the world is made the way it is and I have not drawn it; the flags are those that exist anyway, I did not draw them; all in all, I have made absolutely nothing. Once the basic idea is there, the concept, then everything else is already chosen' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in exh. cat., Alighiero Boetti: Mettere al mondo il mondo, Frankfurt, 1998, p. 69).
By allowing the arbitrary systems of order at large in the world around us to dictate the form of the Mappa, he has brought into existence something that is directly symptomatic of the human thought processes that so fascinated him. For Boetti was interested in humanity's insistence on imposing mental constructs onto the world in order to make it more manageable for our minds. The arbitrary borders and flags of the nations of our planet rank alongside language or games as artificial means of breaking the world down into bite-size chunks that the human brain can more easily comprehend. They invoke abstract logics into the world: 'I am interested in primary matters,' Boetti said, 'such as the alphabet, the map, the newspapers, among other things owing to the spring which thus tautens between order and disorder. There is an exact order innate in each and every thing, even if it manifests itself in a disorderly manner' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in Ibid., 1998, p. 29). This disorder is revealed in the tangle of border skirmishes, in the changes of territories and flags, and in general in the state of flux in which the world exists, a condition that fascinated Boetti.
In the case of the Mappa, the flaws of the arbitrary system of navigating our understanding of the planet are made all the more explicit by the ever-changing political world that this adaptation of the Planisfero politico shows. Boetti's interest in maps as subject matter, as superficial signifiers of vast human turmoil, was first made explicit in his prints, Dodici forme dal giugno '67. There, diagram maps from the front pages of a dozen newspapers from a dozen different days are shown, stripped of all the writing except their date of publication. Yet these amoeba-like shapes, rendered incongruous by their lack of context, resulted from troubles throughout the world, representing as they did Northern Ireland, the Middle East and other such places. 'I was well aware' he stated, 'that these drawings did not come out of my imagination but from artillery bombardments, air raids, and diplomatic negotiations' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in P. Morsiani, exh. cat., When 1 is 2: The Art of Alighiero e Boetti, Houston, 2002, p. 18). In Mappa, Boetti uses this same realisation to point to the arbitrary and artificial nature of human reasoning on one level, but also to the issues of the day, to the wars and regime changes obliquely charted through the ever-changing face of the world map.
Mappa is all the more pointed and poignant as evidence of the real effects of such changes in the world because from 1983, the year it was made, the Afghan weavers who embroidered Boetti's works were based in Peshawar in Pakistan, having escaped the turmoil of the Russian invasion of their homeland. The words at the bottom of Mappa implies that this was one of the last to be created in Kabul itself (if Mappa was made in Peshawar, then Boetti's Italian inscription must have predated their status as refugees: their weaving of their city's name would be a tragic irony that only serves to further underline this). The Mappa itself is therefore evidence of the transient nature of earthly power. Following on from Dodici forme dal giugno '67, Boetti's Mappa subversively challenges the authorities of the world, challenging the governments, belittling them. The fact that Mappa is one of several such maps created over the course of over twenty years means that the different examples reveal the subtle changes to the flags and boundaries of the nations of the world, the political map changing at a far greater pace than the tectonic shifts of the continents. There is a warning to authority in Mappa, a memento mori for the governments of our planet. Yet Mappa, the harmonious product of cooperation between Boetti and Afghan weavers, between West and East, transcends these petty concerns, transcends its own cynicism and instead acts as an invitation for its viewers to be as bright and optimistic as the colours of its threads.
Despite the focus on the arbitrary order inherent in the world, and despite Boetti's insistence that his maps are self-created without his intervention, Mappa is noteworthy for its poetic Italian inscription. Boetti allowed his embroiderers free rein to include Farsi phrases (Rolf Lauter translates the Farsi in this Mappa as, 'May Alighiero sleep with many open eyes' on the left, and 'May you spread luck and embrace the people' on the right). This increased the distance between the artist and his work. Yet the Italian pulls Boetti very much back into the equation. In a letter to Lauter, Boetti discussed the inscription on this particular Mappa:
'How one should understand 'Sciogliersi come neve al sole pensando a te a noi' ('Melting like the snow in the sun in thoughts of you, of us'): Whom I was addressing my thoughts to back then, I no longer know. Most certainly it was a lady, a woman. After all, you melt because of heat and heat is what you receive with love, with erotic tension, with emotional being. All of this is energy. Energy = heat and heat melts the snow (the white)' (Alighiero Boetti, quoted in op.cit., 1998, p. 73).
In this way, Mappa is saturated in themes of impermanence, be it in the form of the geo-political powers of the world, of the wealth implied by the embroidery itself, or in the life and personal desires of the artist himself.