Boetti by Afghan People: Photographs by Randi Malkin Steinberger - Tapa dura

In 1990, Steinberger traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan, with Boetti's blessing, to document how the Afghan refugee women realized the embroideries which Boetti had outlined. Steinberger, traveling with a Boetti assistant, followed "the journey of the cloths" into the craftswomen's workrooms as they brought color to these spectacular works. When Steinberger returned to Rome, she and Boetti worked together to choose 55 color photographs for a future book. Now, two decades after the photos were taken, they are being published for the first time in this beautiful edition.

Boetti often said that he considered his art a way to communicate across the globe, and that the resulting works were owned as much by the women who realized the embroidery as by the artist himself. Now, their story is revealed, and their work can be celebrated as Boetti intended.

Included are texts by Steinberger, Boetti scholar Christopher G. Bennett, longtime Boetti assistant Andrea Marescalchi, and a conversation between Steinberger and Rome-based gallerist, Alessandra Bonomo.