I walked through the Alighiero Boetti retrospective at MoMA again yesterday with a friend. Many of the artist’s ideas, which on the surface seem simple but are complex explorations by a profoud intellect, crystallized on second view. In one piece of wall text, he was quoted as saying something to the effect that he liked to take existing systems and impose new visualizations onto them.

This notion was clearly the strategy that launched an extraordinary series of world maps done as tapestries between 1971 and 1980. Essentially, Boetti made tracings of the type of maps commonly found in European classrooms, which show unlabeled land masses. He gave his tracings, which were simple outlines with the countries filled in with the colors of their national flags, to Afhgan embroiderers, along with representations of the flags. His only instructions were to represent the countries using the colors and graphics of the flags. He said that his work as an artist was confined to creating the concept; everything else was by others. Above: Alighiero Boetti (Italian, 1940-1994). Mappa (Map). 1971-72. Embroidery on linen 78 ¾ x 141 ¾” (200 x 360 cm).Glenstone. © 2012 Estate of Alighiero Boetti / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome.

He then went back to his studio in Italy and worked on drawings and print projects while the tapestries (more than 100 of which were commissioned) were woven. The resulting pieces are magnificent embroideries at massive scale that become a visual essay on the ambiguities attached to conventional notions of measurement, meaning, value and time.

While this souvenir coffee mug (photo by Anton Bettler), which was more than likely picked up at an airport shop in Switzerland, is in a completely different class of objects, it demonstrates that high and low art are not always 100% exclusive.

Alighiero Boetti | Game Plan continues at the Museum of Modern Art through October 1. 11 West 53^rd Street, NY, NY.