Two of the iconic Mappa [World Maps] works by Alighiero Boetti will be exhibited on the occasion of the international summit conference, “Unity in Diversity”, being held in Florence.

“Among the artists of the second half of the twentieth century, Alighiero Boetti embodies the figure of the nomadic and cosmopolitan artist who repudiated the image of the demiurgic creator in favor of a shared and even delocalized creativity, as in the case of his celebrated Mappa, works the artist conceived in Italy but then had made by embroiderers in Kabul, Afghanistan and in the refugee camps of Peshawar, Pakistan: ‘I consider the embroidered Mappa project of the greatest beauty. I did nothing for that project, I chose nothing, in the sense that the world is how it is and I didn’t design it; the flags are what they are and I didn’t design them; in other words, I did absolutely nothing; once the basic idea, the concept, emerges, nothing else is left to be chosen.’”

This publication provides a full portrayal of the artist, who died before his time, the most significant points of his artistic creation and his life through works by famous photographers, and images lent by the Fondazione Alighiero e Boetti. The book is completed with texts by Sergio Risaliti and Jean Christophe Ammann, as well as a powerful and detailed biographical comment by Francesca Franco, Director of the Foundation.