by Stefano Vaccara
NEW YORK (USA) (ITALPRESS) – In the quiet of the Hudson Valley, in Cold Spring, Magazzino Italian Art is confirmed as the main outpost of Italian post-war art in the United States. In this context is inserted Tutto Boetti 1966-1993, the new exhibition dedicated to Alighiero Boetti, a central figure of the Povera Art, inaugurated with a press preview and accompanied by an international symposium. The exhibition, which can be visited until 2028, brings together about thirty works that span three decades of artist activity, offering a targeted rereading of his research. The route starts from the experiments of the Sixties in Turin, with works realized through industrial materials and essential structures, up to the famous textile works, including the famous Maps, born from the collaboration with Afghan artisans. Among the works on display are key moments such as Mazzo di tubo (1966) and Da mille a mille (1975), which mark the passage from a reflection on matter to a wider survey of systems, seriality and the role of the author. Themes that cross the entire production of Boetti and that today appear surprisingly current.
To underline the value of the project was the director of the museum, Nicola Lucchi, who highlighted how the exhibition comes back in a broader program of study and deepening dedicated to the protagonists of the Arte Povera. A work that Magazzino has been carrying out for years thanks to the vision of the founders, Giorgio Spanu and Nancy Olnick, whose private collection is the heart of the museum. The central moment of the inauguration was the symposium organized in collaboration with the Alighiero and Boetti Foundation, thought not as a simple celebration but as an open conversation on the present of the work of Boetti. The goal was not to look at the past, but to question how his insights continue to influence contemporary art. To participate, some of the most authoritative voices of the contemporary Italian artistic panorama: Massimiliano Gioni, Francesco Clemente, Paola Pivi, Ilaria Bernardi, Stefano Arienti and Giordano Boetti, together with other artists and scholars. A comparison that focused on the fundamental themes of Boetti’s practice, such as collaboration, language, systems and creativity, highlighting their continuity in the present.
The dimension of the collaboration, a distinctive element of Boetti’s work, has also emerged strongly in interviews gathered during the event. From the delegation of execution in paper works to embroidered maps, the artist’s work has continually questioned the idea of individual authorship, anticipating dynamics today central in global artistic production. Magazzino Italian Art, a museum founded in 2017 and expanded in 2023 with the Robert Olnick Pavilion, is not only an exhibition space but a real centre of research and dialogue. In this sense, Tutto Boetti 1966-1993 represents something more than an exhibition: it is a critical device that reactivates the thought of an artist able to speak strongly at our time.
– photo xo9/Italpress –
(ITALPRESS).
