Author: wp_8938978

• Alighiero-Boetti.-Perfiloepersegno.-Exhibition-view-at-Palazzo-Mazzetti-Asti-2018.-Photo-©-Enzo-Bruno

The Foundation of the Cassa di Risparmio of Asti at Palazzo Mazzetti, a magnificent eighteenth-century palace, has organized the solo exhibition of Alighiero Boetti “Perfiloepersegno”, curated by the art historian Laura Cherubini in collaboration with Maria Federica Chiola, in  2018 .

Signs and threads are part of Boetti’s artistic grammar: signs as gestures but also as traces left behind, threads such as tapestries, embroideries from the beloved Afghanistan, so hippies and so ‘seventies’ to fascinate even today as some of the most folk, poetic and casual artworks of ‘Arte Povera’. 

Sixty-five heterogeneous works unravel between the halls of the magnificent palace, united by the idea of ​​art declared by Boetti: ‘you can use everything, to make art, without any hierarchy’.

Tapestries, the famous maps, embroideries, cardboard, rugs: a way of making anthropological, casual, material and spiritual art , because Boetti (Io and Boetti as he would say, well known for the work of the ego and its double) combines yin and yang as an experienced shaman  in every artistic event.

The signs on the embroidery have a value that corresponds to the moment, in a transient time that sees them protagonists in the time when you read them, you live them, you internalize them. An inner time of duration à la  Bergson and a being-in-time à la  Heidegger (but also in space, better if boundless, like  his unlikely geographies, to be discovered).

His tapestries have an ethnic’ trait d’union’ between East and West, like the gnawa scales of 70s music, and become conceptual banners of places for the soul, before physical geographies.

Finally, there were  the lesser-known works by Boetti, those created via pen: with obsessive monologues composed of a rhythmic and repeated gesture, exasperating for the regularity of the act; a sort of eternal return of the pen sign, almost ritual.

The art according to Boetti

Art should be transformed into a continuous event according to Alighiero Boetti, in a manifestation of life in a pure state.

Boetti desires that his body in art is a flow and not a repetition, a static representation, a double immobile, but an incessant continuous creation.

This also in his tapestries and  maps : signs of himself that blow the instant of the moment, and in the same an eternity, made of a certain taste for the ritual, like a guru without rules but from the iron rule to transgress all of them.

Life and art are connected by a current of energy, which gives space to dreams, imagination and freedom.

One often has the sensation with Boetti of being in the midst of a shamanic voodoo that  becomes dynamic, ironic, transient but also eternal.

Things become and are transformed perpetually, the repetitions are circular rituals that eliminate the sense of stillness and tradition.

The cultural tradition of the tapestry becomes a game of hands, threads, stories of fabrics, in which the material, poor in fact, puts the accent on life and not on the eternity of traditional marbles.

A little like in the Venere degli Stracci (venus of the rags) by Michelangelo Pistoletto: a tribute to tradition (classical for Pistoletto, folk for Boetti), that is also  transformed by the contact of poor materials (the rags used by the painter for Pistoletto, the threads of popular culture for Boetti).

The maps, the tapestries, the bodily traces (like Me while I take the sun in Turin, January 19, 1969) show themselves as behavioral archetypes, hic et nunc, free and often carefree game in grasping the Instant.

It is always difficult to write about the progress of a complex market like the  art one.

The art market sector is certainly becoming more selective, solid, and often no masterpieces are found.

The post Brexit certainly led to a setback after years of growth in the contemporary sector.

The Italian art of the twentieth century in 2017 has achieved inconsistent and rather erratic results, so much so that there has been talk of the crisis in the sector expected for the current year, 2018.

Casamonti, owner of Tornabuoni Art based in London and Paris, states on the contrary that he does not see significant setbacks.

Two Sotheby’s auctions between London and Milan in 2017 have not been very successful, but rather than seeing a crisis, the fact must be interpreted as an increase in selectivity in the sector.

2017 saw record values ​​for Italian artists such as Alberto Burri and Michelangelo Pistoletto, but also Alighiero Boetti, Franco Angeli and Salvatore Scarpitta.

A 1963 Burri Plastic Black was sold by Sotheby’s New York in the fall for $ 10.9 million. Mirror of Pistoletto of 1967 was beaten by Christie’s London in October for 3.1 million dollars.

There were also lots of the same authors who remained unsold.

Each work is unique, despite the excellent market of an author, its prestige and the general trend of auctions and markets.

The new generation of collectors is certainly more experienced, documented, demanding; or choose the masterpiece from an absolute record or, on the contrary, expect a less spectacular work but which has much more reasonable prices.

Sometimes an auction does not ‘work’ because there are high-sounding names but maybe not an excellent quality of pieces; because the market grows, you need masterpieces. We need extraordinary works.

Not being able to find exceptional quality works  and allocate them to bimonthly auctions is a fact.

In the most important Fairs, from Fiac Paris  to Miami Basel, the quotations with respect to the previous year have registered a + 15%.

For example, Boetti is an artist who has achieved a stable international reputation, but in addition to offering exceptional works at important prices, he offers a series of embroidery and minor works at prices that are more accessible.

Burri in recent years has oddly dichotomous trends: the masterpieces that pass the market reach amazing peaks, while more recent works have much lower values ​​when they are not even unsold.

The whole of the twentieth century market, which has had a downturn in recent years, is undergoing a reversal of the trend: De Chirico, Carrà, Morandi, Severini, Balla are increasing.

Important exhibitions dedicated to these artists will certainly contribute to an increase in value and quotations in the auctions of future auctions.

The market of the future promises to be increasingly selective and attentive *.

* Stefano Cosenz, La Stampa, 12 Feb. 2014