alighiero boetti: game plan @ MNCARS – Madrid

GAMES (Ford & Lopatin) when releasing their EP “That we can play” used a cover filled with “dead” nation flags, maybe a political declaration (Boetti-inspired?) although more to do with their recollection of 80s sounds.

And in a similar visual but indirect (and never knowing where he comes from) way Alighiero Boetti has been playing with duality and division all his career.

Madrid’s modern art museum Reina Sofia (MNCARS for those who love acronyms) is presenting this autumn a retrospective of Boetti’s life & works which brings together over one hundred pieces from different moments in his artistic activity… the largest retrospective to date on the Italian artist, and the first to be held in Spain. An exhibition organized in collaboration with Tate & New York’s MoMA that will travel to the London hub once finished in Madrid (will be @ Tate Modern  from 28 February  –  27 May 2012).

“Game Plan” includes some of his earliest productions, still close to arte povera, and also pieces that are basic to the development of his discourse, such as the mail art piece Viaggi postali or the mysterious and evocative Aerei (1978-1989), which consists of large panels, done in ballpoint pen or watercolour, where numerous airplanes can be seen criss-crossing the sky.

His work, strongly poetic and iconic, uses a wide range of techniques and tools – from drawing and painting to mail art or the production of handicrafts – and it conceives of the spectator as an accomplice or even a playmate.

The exhibition will bring together some of the key works of the artist’s professional career. On loan from numerous international collections, some of these pieces are being shown to the public for the first time. Special attention is merited by a selection from the Mappa series (1971- 1994), the most popular of the artist’s creations. This is a set of large-format world maps in the form of embroidered tapestries produced in collaboration with craftsmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Also on display is Lampada Annuale (1966), a light bulb in a wooden box that lights up randomly for only 11 seconds each year, and is among the most representative works of his povera production. Other pieces included in the exhibition are Ordine e Disordine (1973), a series of tapestries of colored letters that were handed over by the artist to Afghan and Pakistani embroiderers for them to choose the final composition, and some of the lavori biro, works done in ball-point pen in the company of friends and acquaintances.

Any raw material could be transformed into art according to Alighiero, and because any excuse is a good excuse to drop by Madrid’s MNCARS you have until early February to visit