A collage artwork with a manuscript of Grothendieck

The Institute received a very special gift from artist Dominique Lepetz, a former student of Alexander Grothendieck at the University of Montpellier: a collage featuring an original manuscript by Grothendieck at its centre, surrounded by fragments of mathematical texts by Alain Connes, Laurent Lafforgue and Olivia Caramello.

The piece, entitled “Tutto l’universo obbedisce all’amore” (in homage to Franco Battiato), was presented during Lepetz’s exhibition at the event “Mathematics as an artistic experience”, organised by the Institute in Paris last July. 

The presence of the authentic manuscript and of extracts from contemporary writings inspired by Grothendieckian mathematics gives the work a unique value from both a symbolic and artistic point of view.