Executed in 1978, Giocare is a seminal example of Alighiero Boetti’s celebrated Biro series, embodying the artist’s fascination with play – both as a conceptual framework and a material process. The title itself, meaning ‘to play’ in Italian, encapsulates a fundamental tenet of Boetti’s practice: the interplay between order and chance, authorship and delegation.

Rendered in meticulous undulating hatch marks of black biro, the work was created through Boetti’s signature method of delegation, wherein studio assistants filled the expanse of the composition with densely layered ink while leaving the central inscription untouched. The result is a striking visual tension between presence and absence, where the word 'Giocare' emerges in stark contrast against the surrounding field. The inevitable variations in each assistant’s hand introduce a subtle dynamism, reinforcing Boetti’s preoccupation with the interplay between systematic precision and human imperfection.

Boetti initiated his Biro series in 1972, continuing through the 1980s, and in Giocare, we see the assimilation of his most essential artistic concerns: collaboration, duality, coded language, and conceptual wordplay. He produced two versions of this work in 1978 – one in black and one in red – both exemplifying his exploration of linguistic and visual structures. Ever engaged with the fluid boundaries of authorship, Boetti transformed an everyday writing tool (a playful nod to his origins in Arte Povera) into a vehicle for profound artistic and philosophical inquiry, reinforcing his belief in the creative potential of opposites and the poetic resonance of play.