The Art Newspaper

Alighiero Boetti shows in London and Hong Kong

The Italian conceptual artist's work is on display in commercial galleries

By Melanie Gerlis. Market, Issue 236, June 2012
Published online: 30 May 2012

Alighiero Boetti's "25/8/88", 1988, embroidered work goes on view at T.J. Boulting gallery

It has already been a good year to see works by the Italian conceptual artist Alighiero Boetti, whose retrospective at Tate Modern has just closed. Following this is a gallery exhibition with a more academic bent. The exhibition, “Ordine e Disordine” (order and disorder), will be at London’s T.J. Boulting gallery (59 Riding House Street, 6 June-7 July) and will include some pieces that are for sale.

In our print edition, we said the show would focus on his large-scale, embroidered wall hangings, known as grandi arazzi, and the grid-like structures that underpin the works. After we went to press, the gallery director Gigi Giannuzzi told us that the widow of Boetti, who runs his foundation, decided to shift the focus of the exhibition to the artist's small arazzi, and only two grandi arazzi will be shown. "The Foundation felt a show about the grids of the grandi arazzi would have not been suitable at this stage," he says.

Meanwhile, Ben Brown’s eponymous gallery opened Boetti’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, to coincide with the ArtHK fair (until 28 July).