Alighiero Boetti was born in Turin in 1941. He already began to deal with artists like Lucio Fontana, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko at an early stage. Alighiero Boetti went to Paris in 1962 and further educated himself in art. During his two years in Paris the artist particularly focused on Jean Debuffet's object art. In 1967 Boetti discovered the principle of seriality for himself. Henceforth he called himself "Alighiero e Boetti". In 1968 he created his main work "Gemelli" (twins), a black and white photomontage showing a doubled portrait of himself and questioning the uniqueness of his Self. After 1970 he created the first ballpen pictures and after 1973 his famous cross stitches that became embroidered maps at the beginning fo the 1990s. Boetti made his works after mathematical conceptual principles. After 1987 the artist worked with the Iranian Mahshid Mussari who collected different draft motives for Boetti's last and greatest embroidery. However, Boetti couldn't see the complete work that took 10 months to finish - he died as a result of a brain tumor in Rome in 1994.