- 21
Alighiero Boetti
Estimate
500,000 - 700,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Alighiero Boetti
- Mappa
- embroidered tapestry
- 88.9 by 125.7cm.
- 35 by 49 1/2 in.
- Executed in 1979, this work is registered in the Archivio Alighiero Boetti, Rome.
Provenance
Studio Guenzani, Milan
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Literature
Jean-Christophe Ammann, Alighiero Boetti, Catalogo generale, Vol. II, Milan 2012, p. 395, no. 1222, illustrated in colour
Condition
Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is brighter and the red is more intense in the original. The work is attached to a stretched canvas intermittently at the edges.
Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals a few loose threads to the right side of the tapestry.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
"To my mind, the work of the embroidered map represents the supreme beauty. For these works, I made nothing, selected nothing...[the] flags are those that exist...anyway."
The artist, cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Turin, Galleria d'Arte Civica e Contemporanea; Villeneuve d'Ascq, Musée d'Art Moderne; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, 1996-97, p. 216.
Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa is a spectacular example from the artist’s most renowned body of work: the Mappe are internationally recognised and acclaimed for their interpretation of contemporary geo-political mores in a brilliantly creative and ingenious manner. The pure white of the oceanic background gloriously accentuates the coloured curves of the continents, creating dazzling chromatic contrasts which impose themselves magisterially on the eyes of the viewer. The bright red of the Canadian flag is of a particularly vivid hue, whilst the darker red of the vast expanse of the USSR serves to reinforce its ideological and territorial dominance over a large part of the earth’s surface during this particular period. Though of immense appeal on a purely aesthetic basis, Mappa is as a remarkable form of historical documentation: arguably, in some respects, the equivalent of a Bayeux tapestry for our time.
This remarkable series had its primary genesis In 1969, when Boetti took a printed world map and coloured and patterned the countries with the hues of their respective flags, creating the first Mappa on paper, Planisfero Politico. As the artist has explained: "the world is made the way it is and I have not drawn it; the flags are those that exist anyway...Once the basic idea is there, the concept, then everything else is already chosen" (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Alighiero Boetti 1965-1994, 1996, p. 199). Fascinated by classifying alterations in political geography, which he interpreted as a human desire to demarcate the earth, Boetti would go on to expand the concept of Planisfero Politico into his world-famous series of embroidered Mappe. This series would bear witness to every change that affected countries, their borders and their flags and provides an extraordinary account of political geography from 1971 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the historic dissolution of the Soviet Union. As observed by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Boetti's series of Mappe "act as a metaphor for the fluidity of human relationships and communities" (Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera, London 1999, p. 85).
Mappa results from Boetti's masterful employment of the universally familiar world map, which, with its highly readable schema of bright colours, encapsulates his mature and dedicated approach to these wide-ranging lines of enquiry. The notion of territoriality and the structure of the map is a theme with which, historically, many artists have engaged: enlisted to explain geography, delineate territory and describe one country's relationship with another, maps have been employed for centuries by cartographers and artists alike as propaganda tools and formats for political commentary. Boetti's first embroidered Mappa came ten years after Jasper Johns' Map of 1961. While Jasper Johns depicted colourful American States with undefined borders and stamp-like names, elevating the banal and commonplace to the status of fine art and championed Pop-Art by using ready-mades, Boetti borrowed world maps in order to portray conceptually the evolution of the political scene during the Cold War, imbuing his undertaking with a serious and significant purpose.
In Mappa there is a visual dichotomy between the tectonic changes of Nature that have been formed through the ages and the comparatively transitory boundaries of Mankind: "In the Map, you see Nature but also how people have their dramatic influence, creating states and flags" (Jean Christophe Amman in: Exhibition Catalogue, Turin, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Arte Povera in collection, 2000-01, p. 130). By laying bare the physiognomy of the earth, Boetti interrogates the supposed significance of human organization, or what Dan Fox describes as: "the inherent absurdity of imposing abstract human concepts upon the natural world, as if our efforts might reveal some Platonic essence in the landscape or in the passage of time" (Dan Fox, Alighiero e Boetti, London 2000, pp. 105-06). As a metaphor for the changing political and social landscape of recent history, Mappa is truly an outstanding chronicle of our time: a magnificent distillation of a complex myriad of universal concepts and concerns.
The artist, cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Turin, Galleria d'Arte Civica e Contemporanea; Villeneuve d'Ascq, Musée d'Art Moderne; Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, 1996-97, p. 216.
Alighiero Boetti’s Mappa is a spectacular example from the artist’s most renowned body of work: the Mappe are internationally recognised and acclaimed for their interpretation of contemporary geo-political mores in a brilliantly creative and ingenious manner. The pure white of the oceanic background gloriously accentuates the coloured curves of the continents, creating dazzling chromatic contrasts which impose themselves magisterially on the eyes of the viewer. The bright red of the Canadian flag is of a particularly vivid hue, whilst the darker red of the vast expanse of the USSR serves to reinforce its ideological and territorial dominance over a large part of the earth’s surface during this particular period. Though of immense appeal on a purely aesthetic basis, Mappa is as a remarkable form of historical documentation: arguably, in some respects, the equivalent of a Bayeux tapestry for our time.
This remarkable series had its primary genesis In 1969, when Boetti took a printed world map and coloured and patterned the countries with the hues of their respective flags, creating the first Mappa on paper, Planisfero Politico. As the artist has explained: "the world is made the way it is and I have not drawn it; the flags are those that exist anyway...Once the basic idea is there, the concept, then everything else is already chosen" (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Vienna, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Alighiero Boetti 1965-1994, 1996, p. 199). Fascinated by classifying alterations in political geography, which he interpreted as a human desire to demarcate the earth, Boetti would go on to expand the concept of Planisfero Politico into his world-famous series of embroidered Mappe. This series would bear witness to every change that affected countries, their borders and their flags and provides an extraordinary account of political geography from 1971 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the historic dissolution of the Soviet Union. As observed by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Boetti's series of Mappe "act as a metaphor for the fluidity of human relationships and communities" (Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Arte Povera, London 1999, p. 85).
Mappa results from Boetti's masterful employment of the universally familiar world map, which, with its highly readable schema of bright colours, encapsulates his mature and dedicated approach to these wide-ranging lines of enquiry. The notion of territoriality and the structure of the map is a theme with which, historically, many artists have engaged: enlisted to explain geography, delineate territory and describe one country's relationship with another, maps have been employed for centuries by cartographers and artists alike as propaganda tools and formats for political commentary. Boetti's first embroidered Mappa came ten years after Jasper Johns' Map of 1961. While Jasper Johns depicted colourful American States with undefined borders and stamp-like names, elevating the banal and commonplace to the status of fine art and championed Pop-Art by using ready-mades, Boetti borrowed world maps in order to portray conceptually the evolution of the political scene during the Cold War, imbuing his undertaking with a serious and significant purpose.
In Mappa there is a visual dichotomy between the tectonic changes of Nature that have been formed through the ages and the comparatively transitory boundaries of Mankind: "In the Map, you see Nature but also how people have their dramatic influence, creating states and flags" (Jean Christophe Amman in: Exhibition Catalogue, Turin, Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Arte Povera in collection, 2000-01, p. 130). By laying bare the physiognomy of the earth, Boetti interrogates the supposed significance of human organization, or what Dan Fox describes as: "the inherent absurdity of imposing abstract human concepts upon the natural world, as if our efforts might reveal some Platonic essence in the landscape or in the passage of time" (Dan Fox, Alighiero e Boetti, London 2000, pp. 105-06). As a metaphor for the changing political and social landscape of recent history, Mappa is truly an outstanding chronicle of our time: a magnificent distillation of a complex myriad of universal concepts and concerns.