Art News

First large-scale retrospective of Alighiero Boetti’s work opens at Tate Modern

LONDON.- One of the most influential Italian artists of the twentieth century, Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) is the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Modern. Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan is the first large-scale retrospective of Boetti’s work to be held outside Italy in over a decade highlighting his often playful exploration of numeric, linguistic and classificatory systems, as well as his engagement with the people and politics of Afghanistan. Boetti has most commonly been associated with the Italian Arte Povera artists of the late 1960s. While this exhibition begins with his Arte Povera objects made from everyday materials, including Stack 1966 and Little Coloured Sticks 1968, it also reveals his early scepticism about art movements through such works as his mock Manifesto 1967. In the late 1960s Boetti began to explore the figure of the artist, showing how it embodied the dual