Frieze Masters: Alighiero Boetti - A New Approach to Works on Paper

Invitation-only preview: Tuesday 14 October

Ben Brown Fine Arts is pleased to announce their participation at Frieze Masters this October. Renowned for its expertise in 20th Century Italian Art, the gallery will present an extraordinary display of works on paper by acclaimed Italian artist Alighiero Boetti (1940-94).

The focal point will be a monumental twelve-panel biro drawing from 1973, which spells out the title Mettere al Mondo il Mondo a Roma nella Primavera dell'Anno Millenovecentosettantotto Pensando a Tutto Tondo - reinforcing Boetti's fondness for language and wordplay. Boetti's biro works are amongst his most innovative series; this particular example is the largest biro work realised by the artist and was central to Game Plan, the 2011-12 retrospective exhibition at the Reina Sofía, Madrid, Tate Modern, London, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.

Boetti's unique approach to the self-portrait is exemplified in Autoritratto (Self-Portrait) (1969), where he reimagines the intimate experience of the self-portrait using the artificial fixedness of a Xerox machine. Each of the twelve panels features an image of the artist 'signing' a different letter in the deaf-dumb language to spell Autoritratto. Exhibited at the Tate Modern and MoMA, this work is key to understanding Boetti's fascination with identity and communication.

The exhibition will also feature a rare selection of early works from an important Italian collection. Cimento dell'Armonia e dell'Invenzione (1969) and Dodice Forme dal 10 Giugno 1967 (1971) are prime examples of the conceptual and versatile nature of Boetti's oeuvre.

Alighiero Boetti produced a great variety of artworks which deal with the polarities and dualities that complicate human experience: life and death, order and disorder, rationalism and irrationalism. The display at Frieze Masters will include vibrant biro works, drawings, collage, frottage and calendario which serve as Boetti's vessels for exploring these recurrent themes.

Following his major retrospective at the Reina Sofía, Tate Modern, and MoMA in 2011, this presentation will highlight the significance of Boetti's works on paper and demonstrate the cross-generational influence he continues to hold.

Ben Brown Fine Arts will be exhibiting at Stand F8.