{"title":"Alighiero Boetti","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"111","title":"111","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eRather than using the photocopy as a way to create identical copies, Alighiero Boetti saw it as a tool for exploring the relationship between human ideas and technology. Artist’s books such as this one, as well as the expanded version \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eI quindici libri rossi – 111\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, reflect his ongoing interest in systems and the balance between order and chance.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“Already in ’69, in Turin, when I used to go to the Rank Xerox showroom with my little coins in my pocket, I had so many ideas”, Boetti stated in 1991. “I would say: the photocopier is not just an office machine; by the year 2000 we’ll all have one in our living rooms! Give me one, and I’ll document some of its creative applications. I didn’t mean manipulating the mechanism or the ink, as some people had done, from Munari onward. No, what interested me was the standard application. But, for instance, I would have put it out on the balcony when it starts to rain: one drop, ten drops, a thousand drops…”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBoetti was fascinated that a photocopier could transform a simple, mechanical action into a process open to variation and surprise. In \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e111\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, each of the 111 photocopies reproduces a different newspaper clipping, turning fragments of everyday information into a serial composition. The title \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e111\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is both a palindrome and the principle behind the work’s method of production: through repetition, a simple structure can generate countless possibilities. It suggests a kind of “contained infinity”, where endless variations unfold within a fixed system.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAs in other works made with photocopying technologies such as \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNove Xerox Anne Marie\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (1969), \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eDossier Postale\" \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e(1969–1971), and \"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAutoritratto\"\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e (1971), Boetti questioned the traditional role of the artist as the sole creator. Instead, he allowed the machine, the process, and chance to become active participants in the making of the work.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54027795366227,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/111_4d34f598-e891-4950-8206-01fa3b1290a2.png?v=1789195806"},{"product_id":"classifying-the-thousand-longest-rivers-in-the-world","title":"Classifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eFor Hans Ulrich Obrist, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eClassifying the Thousand Longest Rivers in the World\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is among the most influential artist’s books ever created: “one of the greatest artist’s books of all time” (\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eTate Etc.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, 2012). Invoking Heraclitus’s famous observation — “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man” — the Swiss curator recalls a reading of Boetti’s work in Turin several years ago, during which he recited every river’s name and length as an act of homage: “I learnt more from Boetti than I had in the previous years of studying,” he adds.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCo-authored by Boetti with his wife and collaborator, the writer and art critic Anne-Marie Sauzeau, this 1,016-page volume transforms a systematic index of the world’s longest rivers into an extraordinary meditation on the world and its flowing arteries. Through its rigorous classification, this vast conceptual cartography unfolds, in the end, as a poetic reflection, functioning simultaneously as a catalogue, a prose work, and an extended haiku distilling the ever-changing nature of memory and imagination.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Metabooks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54030023983443,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1068\/8898\/6963\/files\/Classifying_cover.png?v=1781782426"}],"url":"https:\/\/metabooks.art\/collections\/alighiero-boetti.oembed","provider":"Metabooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}