Boetti continued to work with a wide array of materials, tools, and techniques, including ball pens (biro) and even the postal system.

This work focuses both on the transformative powers of energy, and on the possibilities and limitations of chance – the likelihood of a viewer being present at the moment of illumination is remote.

[4] Dossier Postale (1969–70) consists of a series of letters which were sent to 26 well-known recipients, primarily artists (Giulio Paolini, Bruce Nauman), art critics (Lucy Lippard, Arturo Schwarz), dealers (Konrad Fischer, Leo Castelli), and collectors (Giuseppe Panza, Corrado Levi) active at the time.

For instance, one of the better known types of his works consists of colored letters embroidered in grids ("arazzi", meaning wall hangings or tapestries) on canvases of varying sizes, the letters upon closer inspection reading as short phrases in Italian, for instance Ordine e Disordine ("Order and Disorder") or Fuso Ma Non Confuso ("Mixed but not mixed up"), or similar truisms and wordplays.

[12] His most ambitious project is a large embroidered piece titled Classificazione dei mille fiumi piu lunghi del mondo (Classification of the thousand longest rivers in the world (1977).

After the 1980 Irpinia earthquake the Neapolitan gallerist asked to the major contemporary artists of that time to realize a work of art about the earthquake; so Boetti realized for this occasion Di palo in frasca nell'estate dell'anno millenovecentottantasei, accanto al Pantheon, a reflection on the concepts of time and thinking: the monkey stands for the human thought's capacity to jump from a think to another.

[16] He pondered the idea of the first large-scale Mappa during his second voyage to Afghanistan in 1971,[17] resulting in a series of woven world maps entitled Territori Occupati.

[18] Between 1971 and 1979 he set up the One Hotel with his friend and business partner Gholam Dastaghir[19] in Kabul[20] as a kind of artistic commune[21] and created large colourful embroideries, the most famous of these were the Mappa, world maps in which each country features the design of its national flag.

Boetti's maps reflect a changing geopolitical world from 1971 to 1994, a period that included the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Arazzi grandi, containing messages in both Italian and Persian, are each distinct, recording the date when they were created, and containing an elaborate internal code that prescribes the order of the sentences on display.

[24] They contrast geometric European letters and flowing Persian calligraphy in checkerboard patterns, alternating bands, grids or cruciform shapes.

[25] The dates, carefully noted on each Arazzi grandi, mark a point of captivation for Boetti, as he was deeply interested in the concept of time and its inevitable passing.

This work began in his studio in Rome, with the artist outlining the countries in felt-tip pen onto linen, before sending the cloth framework to Afghanistan.

[27] The invasion of Afghanistan by Russian troops in 1979 shifted production completely from Kabul to Peshawar in Pakistan, where the group of Afghan women had taken refuge and where Boetti was only able to reconnect with them through middlemen.

A chief example of this series, Mappa del Mondo, 1989 ("Map of the World, 1989"), is on view in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (see Key Works).

In the New York suit, Sperone Westwater asked the judge to make a declaratory judgment that the archive has no moral rights claims and also seeks damages "for the Defendants' injuries to the gallery's business and reputation," on counts of breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, negligent misrepresentation, and interference with business relations.