Artist Alighiero Boetti back in the public eye

"The late Italian conceptual artist Alighiero Boetti was ahead of his time. He believed in a global community and the notion of fair trade, years before it was a popular practice. He placed a high value on non-Western cultural traditions.


Boetti is best known for his Mappa, a series of large embroidered maps of the world in which each country features the design of its national flag. He conceived of the concept but recruited and collaborated with embroiderers from Afghanistan to craft the tapestries. He often waited years for a completed piece.


Santa Monica-based photographer Randi Malkin Steinberger, who worked with Boetti in the '80s and '90s, traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1990 with his blessing to document the process of the artisan embroiderers working in a refugee camp. Nearly 55 of the images she captured that day have been compiled in the book " Boetti By Afghan People: Peshawar, Pakistan 1990 - Photographs by Randi Malkin Steinberger" (Ram Publications)."


Tweet

   
Conceptual artist Alighiero Boetti back in the public eye - latimes.com: