Virtual travels of Alighiero Boetti at the origins of the Maps, 1967-1971

Abstract

Between 1967 and 1969 – years full of work and suggestions, by frequenting Sperone Gallery in Turin each day and proposing new ideas and works – Alighiero Boetti travelled virtually among imaginaries shared with friends. It has to do with a network of suggestions to be defined in 1969, according to the conceptual turn in his research: on the one hand, by traced chequering (series Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione [Feat of harmony and invention], and on the other, Planisfero colorato [Coloured Planisphere], first step of following Mappe [Maps]. This essay tries to reconstruct crossed paths, by analyzing small signs and connections or influences by different artists at the end of ‘60s. Specifically the text deals with the “geographic sentiment” of de Chirico origin – awareness for inhabited space that expanded in an image, where the real point of departure was transfigured visually and conceptually – that emerged in many works, included Boetti’s Mappe as significant case study.