In 1986 he took part at the Lucio Amelio's exhibition "Terrae Motus". 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.