(Turin 1940–1994 Rome)
Naturale Artificiale, 1982, 2 parts, ballpen on paper laid on canvas / biro su carta intelata, each 100 x 70 cm, on stretcher (2)

The work is registered in the Archivio Alighiero Boetti and is accompanied by a photo certificate of authenticity, Rome, 30 May 2007

Photo-certificate, issued by La Bertesca/c.o. Masnata, Genoa, signed by the artist, Rome, October 1983

Provenance:
The artist Francesco Masnata, Genoa (formerly Galleria La Bertesca)
Private Collection, Southem Germany – acquired directly from the above in the late 1990s

Literature:
Jean-Christophe Ammann, Alighiero Boetti, Catalogo generale, Vol 3, Milan 2015, Vol. 3, no. 1391 (with color illustration)

The work NATURALE ARTIFICIALE comes from Alighiero Boetti's biro drawings series. The artist created unique artistic narratives through play, poetry, measure, numbers, order and disorder, which he combined with material diversity, conceptual complexity, and extraordinary visual beauty. Boetti began his biro series in the 1970s, when he created entire sheets collaboratively using different coloured biro ink. Each work in the series contains panels of images created by different students, similar to Boetti's well-known tapestries. With a consistently playful approach to "simple" ideas, Boetti posed fundamental questions about contemporary art production. The liminal space between artist and author is a major concern in Boetti's catalogue of works.

The biro work offered here is a diptych of two sheets hand-coloured with red biros. Looking at the diptych as a whole, the irregular structure, gradations and patterns become apparent. Latin letters are arranged in alphabetical order on the left edge of the picture. Distributed over the two halves of the picture are small white commas in a seemingly arbitrary arrangement. A closer look at the signs reveals that they each correspond to one of the letters of the alphabet. When read in sequence from left to right, they themselves spell out the work’s title NATURALE ARTIFICIALE. Boetti's biro works are generally abstract images that name themselves.

"My works arise from changing forms of collaboration. I am interested in primary things like the alphabet, maps, newspapers - not least because of the sudden surge of order and disorder. Everything has its own precise order, even if that order is realised in a disorderly way."
Alighiero Boetti