Created in 1974, Inaspettatamente (Unexpectedly) comes from Alighiero Boetti’s acclaimed series of biro works, or lavori biro, which conjure velvety, richly-textured fields of colour from the humble medium of ballpoint pen. In the present work, rhythmic waves of black ink fill the surface, shifting in texture and density; at the upper centre, the title appears in white block capitals, as if anticipating the sudden appearance of a new message from the darkness below.

While Boetti developed the concept for each lavoro biro and planned its basic layout with a grid pattern, its actual execution was left to a group of collaborators: students from his local neighbourhood of Trastevere in Rome, whom he had recruited as assistants. A similar method was used in the artist’s Arazzi and Mappe series, which relied on the technical skills of a group of Afghan embroiderers to achieve their finished look. Through these collective processes, Boetti established a form of relational aesthetics whereby he could explore a role as the conceiver but not the ultimate creator of a work of art, undermining the position of the artist as supreme genius.
Armed with a clearly defined set of rules, the lavori biro’s anonymous craftspeople would spend countless hours carefully filling the large panels with intricate layers of hatching: a meditative, time-intensive process which Boetti felt was intrinsic to the nature of the biro drawings. ‘The drawings in biro are concentrates of time’, he reflected; ‘they convey to me a physical impression of extended, immense time’ (A. Boetti, quoted in Alighiero Boetti: Mettere al Mondo il Mondo, exh. cat. Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, p. 59).

Inaspettatamente’s shimmering expanse of darkness is imbued with the distinctive rhythm of its maker, which results in subtle textural and chromatic undulations across the composition. These variations are born of any number of different factors, from the speed, pressure and length of the individual’s stroke to their temperament on a given day, the quality of the pen used, and the gradual loss of pigment as the pen begins to run out of ink and is replaced. Revelling in the results offered by chance, error and the different hands involved, Boetti embraced the quirks this form of collaboration brought to his vision: Inaspettatamente, ‘unexpectedly’, magic emerges from his surrendering of control.