"Zig Zag" belongs to the first body of sculptural work by Alighiero Boetti, made in Turin in the mid-1960s as one of four cubic sculptures made between 1966 and 1968. Each one is built from the fabric of a beach chair woven inside an aluminium cube. The cloth is striped cotton in blue, yellow, red, green, purple, and black, the kind of material associated with deck chairs and summer leisure. The aluminium frame is plain and industrial, and it contains the cloth like a display case.

Like the other Arte Povera artists, Boetti turned to humble, everyday and industrial materials instead of the traditional materials of sculpture such as bronze and marble. The sculpture has also been read as a playful critique of Colour Field abstraction and of Minimalism’s preoccupation with the grid and the “specific object.”

Boetti’s own comments help explain the work. He wrote that “the individual perceptual experience is an end in itself.” In "Zig Zag" that experience comes from looking at the colours and folds, and the work does not call for interpretation beyond that.