Alighiero Boetti - The Great Wonderful: 100 Years of Italian Art New York Wednesday, May 13, 2015 | Phillips

The Great Wonderful: 100 Years of Italian Art

New York 13 May 2015 4pm

  • Video

    Property from A Private American Collection: Alighiero Boetti 'Mappa', circa 1988

    “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other / Having been created of one essence,” so reads the Persian text that runs around the perimeter of this Mappa by Alighiero Boetti. Hardly could he have known that the artisans with which he collaborated on this work could have picked so apt a couplet to represent the artist and his oeuvre. Even in its relation to time, Boetti’s Mappa reflects and embodies an incredible depth and sensitivity – not atemporal but rather operating in and of many “times” at once.

  • Provenance

    Private Collection, Italy
    Bortolami Dayan Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited

    New York, Gladstone Gallery, Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa, November 7, 2009 - January 23, 2010

  • Catalogue Essay

    “The sons of Adam are limbs of each other / Having been created of one essence,” so reads the Persian text that runs around the perimeter of this Mappa by Alighiero Boetti. Hardly could he have known that the artisans with which he collaborated on this work could have picked so apt a couplet to represent the artist and his oeuvre. A seminal member of the Arte Povera movement, Boetti was fascinated by the duality of the world and the manner in which the physical materials of his process could reflect the intricacies of that world. The couplet quoted is from the Bani Adam and is one of the most famous in classical Persian poetry by the most famous poet, Sa’adi. Just as Sa’adi recognized that multifaceted nature of humankind, so too did Boetti wish to embody a unified oneness, but a wholesomeness that simultaneously acknowledged all of its component parts. Similarly, his Mappa, being an embroidery as it is, physically manifests this central theme of multifaceted oneness that permeates Boetti’s oeuvre. Even in its relation to time, Boetti’s Mappa reflects and embodies an incredible depth and sensitivity – not atemporal but rather operating in and of many “times” at once. Depicting an historical narrative but read in the now, the work is both a contemporary commentary as well as a document of the past. The other half of the surrounding inscription sums it “Alighiero and Boetti, in time, on time, with time and/or the temporal.”

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE AMERICAN COLLECTION

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Alighiero Boetti

Mappa

circa 1988
embroidered tapestry
46 1/2 x 86 in. (118.1 x 218.4 cm)
This work is registered in the Archivio Alighiero Boetti, Rome, under number 5071 and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.

Estimate
$1,500,000 - 2,000,000 

Sold for $1,805,000

Contact Specialist
Brittany Lopez Slater
Head of International Exhibitions
New York
+1 212 940 1299

Carolina Lanfranchi
Specialist
Milan
+39 338 924 1720

The Great Wonderful: 100 Years of Italian Art

New York 13 May 2015 4pm