Inaspettatamente

From Thu. 11 Nov. 2021

To Sun. 30 Jan. 2022

Inspired by the life, work and world view of the late artist Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994), Inaspettatamente (Italian for unexpectedly) is curated by Frédéric de Goldschmidt and Gregory Lang.

Exhibition views © Hugard & Vanoverschelde.

Inaspettatamente features sculpture, painting, video and mixed media, 250 artists including Cory Arcangel, Kader Attia, Mirosław Bałka, Walead Beshty, Alighiero Boetti, Carlos Bunga, Julian Charrière, Mary Corse, Hanne Darboven, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Edith Dekyndt, Cristina Garrido, Theaster Gates, Shilpa Gupta, Roni Horn, Anne Imhof, Imi Knoebel, Kapwani Kiwanga, Gabriel Kuri, Alicja Kwade, Richard Long, Piero Manzoni, François Morellet, Jonathan Monk, Roman Opalka, Damián Ortega, Claudio Parmiggiani, Analia Saban,Tomás Saraceno, Katrín Sigurdardottir, Wolfgang Tillmans, Lawrence Weiner, David Wojnarowicz and Héctor Zamora

Ground Floor

There are overlapping themes that weave throughout all three levels of the rear building. Notions of order and disorder, which were central ideas in Boetti’s practice, are tackled first and then followed by works that reflect his interest in abstraction and minimalism.

Here, in room two, the choice of works correspond to Boetti’s obsession with seriality, number sequences, measurement, algebra, combinatorial art and the methodical ordering or listing of elements. A dialogue with his approach and practice is established and characterized by two key works: ‘Raddiopiare dimezzando’ (Doubling by halving) consists of a systematic and progressive halving of a sheet of paper; ’Lavoro postale’ is part of a series that combines various mailed letters to explore all possible combinations of available stamps that can reach the same value.

First Floor

Here, the theme of disorder mirrors the theme of order that was addressed on the ground floor.

The selected works embody the agglomeration, accumulation, piling up and stacking of simple everyday elements that come together to form a single composition. Most of these works represent the collection’s historical link to Arte Povera and the Zero Group (Jan Schoonhoven, Günther Uecker, Piero Manzoni, Dadamaino), whose characteristics are developed by contemporary artists such as Theaster Gates, Michael E. Smith and Aline Bouvy.

Second Floor

In keeping with concepts of order and disorder, the works in this room are gathered according to the idea of the grid and square, whether perfect or irregular. These play on intersecting lines, whether as straight or shifted grids and as seen in François Morellet’s five works amongst other works by historical artists such as Otto Piene and Heinz Mack, are all set in dialogue with Boetti’s work Cinque per cinque venticinque from the Arazzi series. These word compositions were first embroidered by women in Afghanistan in the 1970s, and then in Pakistan, in the 1980s and 1990s.

The apparently disorderly dense grouping of artworks in a nucleus shape on the same wall also resumes the way in which Boetti composed his embroidery sets, most often entitled Order and Disorder.

Zig Zag challenges conventions and orderly lines in a frame. This 1966 sculpture is the artist’s reference to design objects associated with the Arte Povera movement and one of the first instances in which Boetti used fabric in his work.

Third Floor

Returning to the idea of order as a form of purity, these works together examine an aspect of Boetti’s very minimal early work between 1965 and 1970. Divine astrazioni, another embroidery from the Arazzi series introduces works about sign abstraction and geometry (Herbert Zangs and Sol LeWitt) while pointing to the monochromatic with more formal works on color and shape (Imi Knoebel, Alan Charlton and Carlos Bunga), or on geometry and light (Fernanda Fragateiro and Mary Corse).