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Lot Essay
Untitled (1989-1991) is a rare and vibrant collaborative tapestry created by Alighiero Boetti and Mimmo Paladino. It was one of ten such works shown in the special exhibition Alighiero Boetti, Mimmo Paladino: Dieci Arazzi at Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, Modena, in 1992, and was acquired by Alessandro Grassi that year. Spanning almost three metres across, a large red rhombus structures the composition: at the centre is one of Paladino’s characteristic heads, black like a shadow behind a spotlit crucifix. A forked tongue emerges from its mouth. The backdrop is formed of black-and-white stripes filled with playful phrases in Boetti’s handwriting, with the silhouettes of small monkeys swinging among them. These lines rotate at each corner on the diamond’s axis, creating a dizzying reading experience for the viewer.
Boetti held collaboration as a central artistic principle, from his biro works—executed by local students in Rome—to his tapestries, which were fabricated by female weavers in Afghanistan and later in Peshawar, Pakistan, according to his designs. Through these network-based projects, Boetti enacted his concept of ordine e disordine: the idea that all things in the world reach an overall state of balance through the interaction between ‘order and disorder.’ He relinquished control over the end product, welcoming the gentle, tactile irregularities introduced by the artisans’ hands. In the present work he splits his authorship further with the voice of Paladino. The musings Boetti wrote into his tapestries often took on a mystical edge. In the present work, the phrases include Le infinite possibilità d’esistere (‘The infinite possibilities of existence’) and Il mondo è un insieme di particolari (‘The world is a collection of details’). The primates dance freely through the words in a gymnastic image of order and disorder.
Paladino is well known for his enigmatic, archaic figures, which draw widely upon Christian imagery, Classical myth and ancient Egyptian and Etruscan art. Emerging as a leading member of the Transavanguardia movement in the 1970s, his use of figuration and mythological themes defied the dominant Conceptualism of the time. He later found a productive partner in Boetti: while his subject matter contrasted with Boetti’s use of text, systems and semiotics, their practices shared a numinous quality. In the present work, Paladino’s fork-tongued figure speaks mischievously to Boetti’s use of language. Paladino, too, is a serial collaborator. He has since worked with Sol LeWitt on a series of gouaches—contrasting his own lyrical hand with LeWitt’s stark minimalism—and created an installation of sleeping figures, I Dormienti (1999), soundtracked by the experimental musician Brian Eno.
‘The two creative mindsets coexisted in the soft space of the tapestry without drama or oppression, producing by juxtaposition a short circuit of continually echoing images’, explained Achille Bonito Oliva of Boetti and Paladino’s partnership. ‘Yet the different interventions retained a self-referential force, finding in mutual respect the possibility of recognising themselves in their differences.’ The present work, he wrote, ‘carries the mark of the two artists clearly superimposed, a double stylistic figure imprinted over the whole space of the textile material—an articulation of geometry and figuration, rhythm and linearity’ (A. Bonito Oliva, Alighiero Boetti, Mimmo Paladino: Dieci Arazzi, exh. cat. Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, Modena 1992, n.p.).
Boetti held collaboration as a central artistic principle, from his biro works—executed by local students in Rome—to his tapestries, which were fabricated by female weavers in Afghanistan and later in Peshawar, Pakistan, according to his designs. Through these network-based projects, Boetti enacted his concept of ordine e disordine: the idea that all things in the world reach an overall state of balance through the interaction between ‘order and disorder.’ He relinquished control over the end product, welcoming the gentle, tactile irregularities introduced by the artisans’ hands. In the present work he splits his authorship further with the voice of Paladino. The musings Boetti wrote into his tapestries often took on a mystical edge. In the present work, the phrases include Le infinite possibilità d’esistere (‘The infinite possibilities of existence’) and Il mondo è un insieme di particolari (‘The world is a collection of details’). The primates dance freely through the words in a gymnastic image of order and disorder.
Paladino is well known for his enigmatic, archaic figures, which draw widely upon Christian imagery, Classical myth and ancient Egyptian and Etruscan art. Emerging as a leading member of the Transavanguardia movement in the 1970s, his use of figuration and mythological themes defied the dominant Conceptualism of the time. He later found a productive partner in Boetti: while his subject matter contrasted with Boetti’s use of text, systems and semiotics, their practices shared a numinous quality. In the present work, Paladino’s fork-tongued figure speaks mischievously to Boetti’s use of language. Paladino, too, is a serial collaborator. He has since worked with Sol LeWitt on a series of gouaches—contrasting his own lyrical hand with LeWitt’s stark minimalism—and created an installation of sleeping figures, I Dormienti (1999), soundtracked by the experimental musician Brian Eno.
‘The two creative mindsets coexisted in the soft space of the tapestry without drama or oppression, producing by juxtaposition a short circuit of continually echoing images’, explained Achille Bonito Oliva of Boetti and Paladino’s partnership. ‘Yet the different interventions retained a self-referential force, finding in mutual respect the possibility of recognising themselves in their differences.’ The present work, he wrote, ‘carries the mark of the two artists clearly superimposed, a double stylistic figure imprinted over the whole space of the textile material—an articulation of geometry and figuration, rhythm and linearity’ (A. Bonito Oliva, Alighiero Boetti, Mimmo Paladino: Dieci Arazzi, exh. cat. Galleria Emilio Mazzoli, Modena 1992, n.p.).