Installation view of Alighiero e Boetti’s ‘Mappa’ at Gladstone Gallery

Currently on view at Gladstone Gallery’s West 21st Street location is ‘Alighiero e Boetti: Mappa.’ The exhibition is the first retrospective of the Italian artist’s series of hand-woven carpets that depict world maps. Boetti initiated the series in 1969 with a hand-drawn prototype, coloring in each country with its flag. After a visit to Afghanistan two years later, he commissioned a group of women to weave flags until the artist’s death in 1994. Each map typically took one to two years to complete, though the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 halted production for three years and only a few maps were made between 1982-85.

One of the Afghan women Alighiero e Boetti comissioned to weave his ‘Mappa’ series via Gladstone Gallery

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