Alighiero Boetti Italian, 1940-1994
Aerei, 1983
Ballpoint pen on paper laid down on canvas
3 parts, 35.3 x 24.2 cm. (13 7/8 x 9 1/2 in.) each / 35.3 x 72.6 cm. (13 7/8 x 28 5/8 in.) total
Copyright The Artist
Alighiero Boetti’s Aerei (1983) is a striking example of his renowned and instantly recognisable Aerei series, executed in ballpoint pen. Other works from this series are held in the collections...
Alighiero Boetti’s Aerei (1983) is a striking example of his renowned and instantly recognisable Aerei series, executed in ballpoint pen. Other works from this series are held in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Aerei features a dense expanse of biro marks, with aeroplanes in negative space flying in all directions. Crisscrossing and transcending the boundaries of the canvas, the composition is both visually frenetic and elegantly orchestrated, embodying Boetti’s mastery of both order and chaos.
The Aerei series embodies the core tenets of his conceptually rich and rigorously structured artistic practice. Both visually arresting and philosophically profound, the Aerei works reveal Boetti’s ability to distil complex ideas into compositions of striking beauty. The genesis of the Aerei series lies in Boetti’s process-driven approach to image-making. He began by collecting images of aeroplanes from newspapers and magazines, creating transfer drawings by placing paper beneath these images and tracing their outlines to transfer the ink. These sketches laid the foundation for a decade-long collaboration with Guido Fuga, an Italian architect and cartoonist whom Boetti met in Venice in 1977. Together, they developed roughly twelve varying compositions depicting crowded skies teeming with aeroplanes of all types: passenger jets, fighter planes, cargo craft, and early propeller models, alongside Concordes and two-seater planes. These dynamic assemblages evoke a sense of temporal and technological simultaneity, an aerial choreography where past and present coexist.
Boetti’s Aerei series encapsulates a multitude of personal and universal themes. Reflecting his nomadic lifestyle and extensive travels to Afghanistan, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Japan, Morocco, and Peshawar, the Aerei works carry an autobiographical dimension. At the same time, they embody the conceptual duality of “order and disorder,” as each plane occupies its own space without any apparent hierarchy or overarching system. This interplay of opposites aligns with Boetti’s aspiration “to bring the world into the world,” uniting all conceivable planes in a single composition and blending seemingly disparate media – ink, watercolour, and photography – into a cohesive whole.
The Aerei series embodies the core tenets of his conceptually rich and rigorously structured artistic practice. Both visually arresting and philosophically profound, the Aerei works reveal Boetti’s ability to distil complex ideas into compositions of striking beauty. The genesis of the Aerei series lies in Boetti’s process-driven approach to image-making. He began by collecting images of aeroplanes from newspapers and magazines, creating transfer drawings by placing paper beneath these images and tracing their outlines to transfer the ink. These sketches laid the foundation for a decade-long collaboration with Guido Fuga, an Italian architect and cartoonist whom Boetti met in Venice in 1977. Together, they developed roughly twelve varying compositions depicting crowded skies teeming with aeroplanes of all types: passenger jets, fighter planes, cargo craft, and early propeller models, alongside Concordes and two-seater planes. These dynamic assemblages evoke a sense of temporal and technological simultaneity, an aerial choreography where past and present coexist.
Boetti’s Aerei series encapsulates a multitude of personal and universal themes. Reflecting his nomadic lifestyle and extensive travels to Afghanistan, Guatemala, Ethiopia, Japan, Morocco, and Peshawar, the Aerei works carry an autobiographical dimension. At the same time, they embody the conceptual duality of “order and disorder,” as each plane occupies its own space without any apparent hierarchy or overarching system. This interplay of opposites aligns with Boetti’s aspiration “to bring the world into the world,” uniting all conceivable planes in a single composition and blending seemingly disparate media – ink, watercolour, and photography – into a cohesive whole.