Alighiero E Boetti: Ononimo

Overview

“I have done a lot of work which presents a visual disorder that is actually the representation of a mental order. It’s just a question of knowing the rules of the game.”

- Alighiero e Boetti

Ben Brown Fine Arts Hong Kong is delighted to present Alighiero e Boetti: Ononimo, an exhibition exploring the artist’s enduring fascination with systems, collaboration, and variation. Bringing together works from Boetti’s celebrated Biro and Aerei series, the exhibition traces his investigation into how order and repetition give rise to difference, and how meaning emerges through collective labour, time, and chance.

 

The exhibition’s title, Ononimo – borrowed from Boetti’s 1973 work – derives from a neologism he coined by merging the Italian anonimo (anonymous) and omonimo (homonymous). First written in blue biro in 1971 as a self-reflexive expression, it reflects Boetti’s preoccupation with duality and the splitting of identity, a principle he formalised that same year by inserting an “and” between his names to become “Alighiero e Boetti.”