This was Alighiero Boetti’s last show before he died in April 1994. The artist transformed la rue (the vast open space of the Magasin) into a mosque by placing fifty kilims woven by Afghan refugees in Peshawar, with drawings coming from the students of over thirty French Écoles des beaux-arts, art professionals, and friends. I edited the exhibition catalogue (and also made a drawing, with Benedetta Lucherini, for one of the kilims). Twenty-five kilims with their preparatory drawings were exhibited a few months later in New York at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Institute (Oct. 13, 1994 — Jan. 8, 1995). As a newly appointed Exhibition Coordinator, I oversaw the exhibition.
Alighiero e Boetti: Alternant de 1 à 100 et vice versa
November 27, 1993 — March 27, 1994
Magasin, Grenoble (France)
Alighiero e Boetti: Alternant de 1 à 100 et vice versa
Installation view
Magasin, Grenoble
Photo: Lila Kambanis, Paris
Students of the École des Beaux Arts of Grenoble making the drawing for one of the kilims of the Alighiero e Boetti: Alternant de 1 à 100 et vice versa exhibition at the Magasin, Grenoble (September 1992). Photo: Egon von Fürstenberg.
Boetti’s studio in Rome (February 1993).
Boetti’s Afghan collaborators, Peshawar, Pakistan (March 1993).
One of the fifty kilims being woven, Peshawar, Pakistan (March 1993).
With its one hundred squares of a wrapping & unwrapping spiral, this was Alighiero Boetti’s favorite kilim designed by the art students of the École d’art de Lorient.
