BURRI painting, an irreducible presence

BURRI

Painting, an irreducible presence

Bruno CorĂ

Table of contents

BURRI Painting, an irreducible presence Bruno CorĂ

Alberto Burri in his studio in Grottarossa, Rome, c. 1966

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The Grande Cretto of Gibellina Luca Massimo Barbero

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Works in Exhibition

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Appendix Catalogue Solo Exhibitions Biography

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BURRI Painting, an irreducible presence Bruno Corà

“Words are no help to me when I try to speak about my painting. It is an irreducible presence that refuses to be converted into any other form of expression.”

Alberto Burri, in The New Decade – 22 European Painters and Sculptors, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 19551

Alberto Burri in his studio in via Nera, Rome, 1959

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Burri: primordia and origins

NOTE In the present text the abbreviation (cat.) followed by a number indicates the reference number of Burri’s works in the Catalogo generale, edited by Bruno Corà, published by the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri in 2015.

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Twenty-five years after the death of Alberto Burri, a revolutionary master of twentiethcentury and contemporary painting, one might almost say that his art has no need of further interpretations. There have been so many, during his life and afterwards, and the biographies and exegeses concerning him are full of them. They include precocious, masterful and pondered essays and articles by James Johnson Sweeney, Giulio Carlo Argan, Francesco Arcangeli, Maurizio Calvesi, Enrico Crispolti, Cesare Brandi and, most recently, Emily Braun. Nevertheless, the contribution that for me still carries the palm for unsurpassed efficacy is that of the several exertions of Emilio Villa, from the very start and thereafter.

Surfacing intact in Villa’s pages are intuitions and illuminations that are not only poetic – which would in themselves be enough to attribute to him, over and over, admiring recognition – but also nuggets of hermeneutic force and felicity that call for a reappraisal of the aspects and arguments of his divinatory critical activity. Here I refer in particular to his first contributions, dating to the early 1950s, in which I find an indication of Burri’s poetics that triggers an interesting way into the artistic directions he took in the years following his debut in Rome. At the conclusion of an early article, Villa stated that Burri’s is a “superior initiative […] of cellular decomposition of the original void, the cosmic void […] a palingenetic visitation” (1951),2 and hence a work aimed at a new origin. In a later article he emphasised: “Our cast-off elegiac, dumbfounded, composite cosmogony, epic in snapshots, everyday tragedies, rhapsodic miniature of the great formations of time […].

In the memory of the dwellings on piles there’s much to become the matter of a brief and troubled painting surface, a painting in a manner of speaking and, on the other hand, of any other action performed to reveal specific and irrefutable meanings. Alberto Burri cultivates as if in vitro, or rather as if in linen, these contractile anatomies of unexpressed organisms, wavering between a semblance of redundant biological materials and an ideal of fulminous universes from gigantic to minimal. A gaping ambiguity, a desire to embrace the memory of things that have to be clarified; a plaintive cosmogony conjectured with the mere innocence of nondescript materials: the rejected neighbourhood rags, tacky paints, amorphous pastes in a state between decay and crystallisation, cast-off timbers destined to water or fire, tarmac and mucilage. A world of run-of-the mill waste can become analogous and congenial to those with mightiest imagination. In any corner of the world a lively and disinterested eye such as that which fires the vision of Alberto Burri can surprise and draw forth the surge originating from higher realms where breathes the precise meaning of our secular and popular epic” (1952).3 In the conclusion to this second text Villa leaves no doubt about the dimension to which he believes Burri has directed his artistic action: “I recall Burri’s great invention: the opaque, after all the daring opacity, fished from the bottom of the other colours and formed into highly expressive concretions: the existence of the world in its purity turned almost into elegance, lightness conceived within matter, before unification and before separation…” 4 We should also recall that, while Villa was in Brazil between 1951 and 1952, working for the MASP (Museo d’Arte di São Paulo), he devoted himself avidly to the culture of prehistoric man. Nor should we overlook what I see as a little-explored but significant aspect of Villa’s interest in the ‘primordial’, along with his assiduous frequentation of a painter such as Corrado Cagli, theorist of the ‘primordial’ in the 1930s. Villa had already composed pieces for Cagli’s 1950 work on the Tarocchi.

Several recent studies of Cagli5 trace the derivation of his primordial poetics to that of Giorgio de Chirico (taken in turn from Nietzsche) and transmitted to Cagli by Massimo Bontempelli. They also state that Cagli (responsible for the reworking of the concept of primordiality) was excluded from the one and only show in January 1951 of the Gruppo Origine (Ballocco, Burri, Capogrossi, Colla) which was immediately disbanded, with the resulting temporary break in the friendship between Cagli and Capogrossi, as reported

by Ballocco himself.

The fellowships of Villa and Cagli and later of Villa and Burri can be held responsible for the poet having provided more than one stimulus of encouragement to the action undertaken by Burri in his palingenetic speculation. This started with the stripping off of his own existential condition and the radical determination to address it by resorting to the tabula rasa of an art derived from its own objective material destitution, which was at the same time an unassailable ethical value. Moreover, the conditions of artists such as

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Colla and Capogrossi do not appear to be very different from the situation of Burri at that time, and one could even add the older Lucio Fontana. In the post-war period all of them felt a similar urgency to recalibrate their art through equally radical new departures.

Starting from the moment he abandoned figuration, and hence from the Catrami [Tars], 1948, to the Sacchi [Sacks], 1949-50 (fig. 1), Burri’s work signalled a primordium generating poetic tension that relies on a plain and simple self-referential étant donné, devoid of concern for the gratification of any exterior agent. This was concentrated on the inalienable principles of his own identity, memory and consciousness, the desire to subvert existential conditions and the assertion of his own imaginative fire.

The concern with composition and the conceptual rigour of form, space and equilibrium that governed his works from the very start are so evident and weighty as to indicate objectives very different from those that have been suggested, the alleged metaphors of the “wound’”, of blood and surgical practice, for instance, hypothesised as reminiscences of his past profession as a doctor and as a consequence of the trauma suffered by the artist during the years of war and imprisonment, or other sophisticated but unreliable analyses reductive of a full awareness of his artistic activity. As I see it, Burri’s painting proves to be the result of the conscious elaboration of a lucid poetic tension and a precision, declared by the artist himself to be “infallible”, apropos the objective to revolutionise the pictorial tradition of which – from a certain point of his life onwards – he identified himself as a historic depositary.

Such an undertaking was the meditated process of a tenacious conscience that never yielded, but complied without hesitation with the obligations that a steadfast conviction in the conceptual nature of art demanded from one of its greatest exponents.

Burri’s ethics To gain an understanding of what Burri’s work meant in that early post-war period, we have only to read the words of Salvatore Scarpitta, an artist emblematic of the experiences taking place between Europe (particularly Italy) and the USA, decanting and drawing inspiration and new ideas from the differences that were manifest on the two continents: “[…] My story is not aesthetic, it is about the quest for content […] mine is an individual journey. Do you know what Burri did? He established a dignity that set an example for us. We didn’t even have to look at his paintings, because he offered moral support at a time when many painters were seduced by abstract expressionism, and one has to admit that, without the moral example of that man there, life would not have been possible. The ethics that he brought to Italian art were far superior to anything else.”6 Very little has been said about this quality, despite Scarpitta highlighting the important role played by Burri during the post-war period. Moreover, there has been insufficient exploration of the importance of artistic ethics at the time and subsequently in relation to the production of Burri and other artists. However, the weight of that dignity, which is apparent in Burri’s work and in his refusal to make poetic and behavioural compromises, must have penetrated deeply given that artists such as Fontana, and later Jannis Kounellis, Fabio Mauri and others, never failed to remark upon it. Kounellis wrote: “During my training the works of Burri and Fontana played a primordial role, as did the work of many other artists of that generation who focused their research on matter.”7 On another

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for learning about the way he worked. Burri’s use of fire is highly attractive because it transgresses a taboo. Moreover, it is doubly so because, as in the case of Fontana’s awl or blade for making “holes” or “slashes”, while fire appears to destroy, it is actually used by Burri to build something that was unknown before and to renew the appearance of form from its roots. It is desire, rather than need, that drives Burri’s poetic excitement in the use of fire. As Gaston Bachelard wrote: “fire suggests the desire to change, to speed up the passage of time, to bring all of life to its conclusion, to its hereafter. In these circumstances the reverie becomes truly fascinating and dramatic; it magnifies human destiny”.15 However, inherent to the compositional intention that drives Burri’s formative action on the wooden, plastic and metal materials is an ordering principle that Bachelard has been equally successful at identifying: “fire separates substances and destroys material impurities. In other words, that which has gone through the ordeal of fire has gained in homogeneity and hence in purity.”16 Burri progressed seamlessly from fire to the other classic elements of matter: earth, air, water. As we shall see, these elements are summed up in his Cretti.

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The Plastiche [Plastics] The exhibition of the transparent Plastiche at the Marlborough Gallery in Rome in 1962 marked, for various reasons, a turning point as significant as the Sacchi and other fundamental episodes in Burri’s career. By obtaining a qualified and “unprecedented” image from this humble and artificial material, Burri achieved yet another transformative miracle.

It has often been observed that Burri started to become interested in plastic in the 1950s.

He made several works during those years that included plastic inserts such as the Sacco 5P [Sack 5P], 1953 (fig. 23; cat. 220), followed by Tutto Rosso P [All Red], 1956 (fig. 24; cat. 597), Rosso P1 [Red P1], 1956 (fig. 25; cat. 604), Combustione Plastica Rosso e Nero [Plastic Combustion Red and Black], 1956 (fig. 26; cat. 609) and Nero Rosso Combustione P57 [Black Red Combustion P57], 1957 (fig. 27; cat. 610). In that same year he produced four other Combustioni Plastiche, followed in 1958 by five more, including three of small size, as well as Nero [Black], 1961 (fig. 28; cat. 890), Rosso Plastica 3 [Red Plastic 3], 1961 (fig. 29; cat. 898), and the two Rosso Plastica, 1961 (figs. 30, 31; cat. 894, 897), which were also both quite small.

Before this date, the use of fire had also served as a decisive formative element for Burri’s series of Combustioni, Ferri and Legni. But in the catalogue that accompanied the presentation of this new cycle of works in Rome, Cesare Brandi underlined the novelty

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of the material chosen by Burri – the transparent plastic, which he called “unprecedented” – and stated that these works “represent a new beginning” after a pause due to a surgical operation that had forced the artist, against his will, to interrupt his work. Brandi even maintained that the Plastiche “are the sublimation of all of Burri’s previous experiences” and highlighted the seeming inherent inability of the material, which is like cellophane, to “form an image”, because of the everyday use to which it is put and the objective “difficulty of giving it a different purpose.”17 However, unlike the Plastiche on show at the Marlborough Gallery, in all the other works mentioned above Burri used a different, thicker, coloured plastic that is not transparent, and while it had been shaped with fire, it also had a support of canvas, celotex fibreboard or another material. In the Rome exhibition, the plastic – which looks “very like cellophane” (Brandi) – becomes an image through the layering of the material, reflecting light in different directions depending on the position and degree of shadowing produced by burning large areas of the transparent surface. The resulting spatial composition recalls the disintegration of biological tissue captured on radiographic plates.

Brandi also asserted that “This stratigraphy is the structure of the image; it truly represents the new dimension of Burri’s image.” In his sensitive reading, Brandi compared these transparent works to the grisaille of ancient stained-glass windows, which in painting appears to condense the greyness of northern skies. Brandi’s comparison is not so distant from Burri’s idea when, several years after this exhibition (the first in which he presented his Plastiche), he created a monumental plastic lozenge to hang before the high window of the choir of the church of Sion in Switzerland. Burri even titled the work Vetrata [Window], 1968, and mounted the transparent, charred plastic on a metal frame, reminiscent of stained-glass.

The location of this large Plastica leads to specific considerations which need to be developed, but not before having examined the following points. The first concerns the structure of “deep” transparency of the image in the Plastiche. Except for the stainedglass windows created for the decoration of sacred buildings by a few modern and contemporary artists, the only examples of transparent works that can serve as a reference when thinking in terms of space rather than iconography, are the Glider Containing a Water Mill in Neighbouring Metals, 1913-15, and the famous “Large Glass”, The Bride Stripped Bare

by Her Bachelors, Even, conceived by Marcel Duchamp between 1915 and 1923 but never finished. While the distance between the works of Duchamp and Burri – as has recently been noted18 – imposes hermeneutical caution, it is still possible to make comparisons.

Although different, both works form an image by employing unusual materials as supports for their respective painting: glass for Duchamp and plastic (as in Plastica, 1964, fig. 32, pl. pp. 126-127; cat. 978) for Burri – both transparent media. Duchamp does not work the Pages 28-29: Vetrata, 1968 plastic and combustion on a metal frame, choir of the Church of Sion, Switzerland

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On this page and pages 32-33: Ugo Mulas, Alberto Burri, Grottarossa, 1962

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Page 31: Grande Nero Plastica L.A., 1964

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glass, but uses it as a “room” in which to suspend his enigmatic composition, considered by all hermetic and complex. Burri, on the other hand, burnt sheets of transparent plastic with a blowtorch, then sealed them with a similar number of transparent surfaces that enclose the charred areas. Duchamp’s Large Glass, on permanent display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is a composition left intentionally unfinished by the artist, the meaning of which remains undeciphered despite many attempts to do so. Some have seen it as the final horizon of perspective in Western visual culture, or as a literal wall that could not be climbed, leaving perplexed viewers front and behind trying to find an enigmatic artistic value while observing themselves as observers. One might describe it as an unsolvable cul-de-sac. Michelangelo Pistoletto, who has focussed on “mirror-painting” since 1961, overcomes this difficulty by introducing into his work the element of reflection that reverses and reopens a new space-time-based perspective. Burri’s Plastiche, on the other hand, allow us to see the ambience onto which the suspended shapes from the lacerations of the combustions are projected, mixed with flashes and fleeting expanses of light. This gives the work a spatial dimension that is rendered dramatic by the artist’s gesture and calls for an individual meditation inspired by the new material and the signs that have come to light. Is it a different and yet analogous question to that of the human condition?

Or is it the wounded sky of our age, contaminated forever? Burri refuted any figurative or symbolic reduction of his work, and so the questions remain unanswered.

It is well known that the “almost ethereal work of art”, observed by Brandi, would come to include less rarefied and more dramatic versions, almost infernal in their poetic statements. The red Plastiche and black Plastiche evoke in the individual imagination a “descent into Hell”, as has rarely been seen in the painting of any time since Bosch.

But the transparency of Burri’s Plastiche is not of the same, clear and uniform quality as that of glass, and even less like the cracked glass of Duchamp’s work. To the contrary, it is veiled by smoke, stained by combustion and only partially penetrable by the gaze because of the overlaid layers of cellophane, defining itself no longer “in relation to a background, but as a structure in and of itself” (Brandi). Whereas the articulation of each image of the transparent Plastiche exhibited at the Marlborough gallery is the result of a combustion which, through the void created by the lacerations and craters, the black of the burnt matter and its residue, the light and nuanced shadows produced by the flame and the smoke, as well as the multiple needles of light unleashed on the surfaces, reaches a complexity that amounts to structure, the red and black Plastiche are distinguished by other, different properties. With the red Plastiche, Burri abandoned transparency in favour of a frontality that excludes any penetration by the gaze. If anything, the gaze seeks to orient itself around the lacerated material, now gleaming like glistening drool, now traversed by the soft shadows of the flame, and now the deep abyss of black acrylic laid on the ground of the canvas inside the areas defined by the craters, as can be seen in Rosso Plastica M 3 [Red Plastic M3], 1961 (fig. 33, pl. pp. 118-119; cat. 933), in this exhibition. In the black Plastiche, the dynamics of the image are obtained through the contrast between the burning of the cellophane on the surface, which is in turn lacerated and covered in wrinkles, creases and places where it has congealed – strains and reactions of the material all achieved by fire – and the black, opaque ground of the mute acrylic, gaping beyond the edges of the craters produced by the flame, as in the Grande Nero Plastica L.A. [Large Black Plastic L.A.], 1964 (pl. p. 123; cat. 981), it too in this exhibition.

But very often Burri also used combustion on large sheets of red or black plastic mounted on wooden frames, such as in Rosso Nero Plastica [Red Black Plastic], 1964 (cat. 990, the only double-sided work in the exhibition) or in Nero Plastica [Black Plastic], 1964 (fig. 34; cat. 987) in the Marzotto collection.

The convulsive transformation of the red and black plastic surfaces realised in Burri’s combustions up to 1964 reached degrees of physical modification that can be truly described as theatrical, even infernal, in view of the fury of his treatment of the plastic material. From the cooling phases following the application of the flame there emerge

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The Grande Cretto of Gibellina Luca Massimo Barbero

Di queste case non è rimasto che qualche brandello di muro Di tanti che mi corrispondevano non è rimasto neppure tanto Ma nel cuore nessuna croce manca È il mio cuore il paese più straziato.

Giuseppe Ungaretti, San Martino del Carso, 1916 – Of these homes / nothing is left / but a few / fragments of wall / Of the countless others / who were close to me / not even that much / remains / But in my heart / no cross is lacking / My heart is the most / ravaged of terrains.

Grande Cretto Gibellina (detail), 2012

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I have chosen to open with Ungaretti, a poet dear to Alberto Burri, because of their shared sense of pathos in the face of ruins, symbol of tragedy and destruction: for Ungaretti, it was the remains of a village in Friuli, destroyed by bombing; for Burri, it was his encounter with old Gibellina, destroyed by the Belice earthquake.

The sad story is well-known: in January 1968, two tremors within the space of twentyfour hours razed the town of Gibellina, causing more than a hundred casualties and leaving a thousand survivors homeless. The local government decided to abandon the town and build a new one some twenty kilometres away, closer to the highway. In order to compensate for the eradication of the town’s history, the new Gibellina was to be ‘ennobled’ by the presence of numbers of works of art, because, “art is not superfluous,”1 as declared in the title of a long article by Ludovico Corrao, the visionary mayor of the valley of Belice, in 1979. Art was to restore identity to the town, which otherwise risked a “complete loss of identity that might make it seem like the suburb of any random city.

From this comes the necessity for an anchor to our own historical and cultural roots.

The first problem we tackled was to recover as much as possible that preserved the memory of the old, destroyed town in order to retain not a shrine but a remembrance, as a source to which we can refer back.”2 At the outset Corrao’s focus was on Gibellina Nuova, to which he invited Ignazio Moncada, Carmelo Cappello, Turi Simeti, Paolo Schiavocampo, Emilio Isgrò, Rosario Bruno, Carla Accardi, Nino Franchina, Mauro Staccioli, and – with a predominant role – Pietro Consagra.3 The role of Consagra, sculptor from Mazzara del Vallo, was actually broader and more programmatic: he was entrusted with the production of a number of sculptures, including the cemetery gates, a monumental star, Stella (entryway to the Belice valley), and Meeting (1972) – a gathering place in the new Gibellina – as well as with the design of an entire theatre, which was never completed but which placed Consagra in a direct relation to architecture: he who, through 1968, two years before Corrao’s invitation, had been working on the concept of the Città frontale [Frontal City], a sculpture on such a vast scale that it could be inhabited without losing either its frontality or its sculptural dimension. His theatre, with its sculptural character, was a forerunner of the behemoths of contemporary architecture, but at a time that was not yet ripe and in a land where it was difficult to bring such projects to a conclusion. The originality of Consagra’s futuristic architectural vision is clear, especially if viewed from the point of view of the formal evolution of architecture that has given us, in recent decades, buildings comparable to enormous sculptures.

Alberto Zanmatti, the architect working on Consagra’s project, was the intermediary between Burri and Corrao for the former’s invitation to take part in the Gibellina utopia.

Burri visited Gibellina Nuova in 1981, but was not convinced; he surely understood that there was limited room for manoeuvre and that the spaces were already tainted, for him, by the presence of the work of other artists. He then asked to see the site of the tragedy – a place of perpetual pilgrimage according to Corrao: “People still go there all the time, among the ruins of the destroyed town, to think, to meditate, to see their homes again.”4 And it was there, among the ruins, amidst the rubble still imbued with grief, that the artist felt moved to conjure the vision of the Grande Cretto: a crackled white quilt laid over the tortured body of the city. Almost a feat of alchemy, of transformation of the place: from the site of tragedy to the space of remembrance.

Burri immersed himself in the ruins of Gibellina twice over, on two levels: it was physical on the occasion of his first visit, and then active, with the pouring of the pure white cement that mirrored the layout of the town plan.

In Corrao’s firsthand account we read his recollection of the tragedy, which is however already delivered in the tone and with the energy of the will to begin again. The earthquake is described in evangelical language as “[...] freeing the latent energy in the bowels of the earth, as though from the broken hearts of the mothers [...]. The desperate tension that emerges from the bowels of the earth proclaims a new cycle of regeneration even for humankind.”5 Corrao was aware that “those stones could not remain eternal tombs, dedicated to oblivion, like the ones uncovered in the nearby cemetery,”6 and with courage he not only put his trust in Burri’s enterprise, but defended it in the face of attacks by the Sicilian Christian Democrats, who saw in the project only “the delusional madness of Burri and Corrao.”7

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The Grande Cretto under construction

The local administration, mirror of a reactionary mentality, was blinkered, whereas Corrao and Burri were visionaries – spurred by the pride intrinsic to the nature of the artist: “That pride is a fundamental component of Burri’s personality is not an impression but an affirmation,” wrote Calvesi in 19718 – and were aware from the start of the project’s grandeur, its universality.

The sheer numbers of the Cretto render tangible the immensity of the enterprise.

The ground was prepared, as was the practice in Burri’s work, by piling the rubble together in blocks that followed the original layout of the streets. Work began on 28 August 1985 and concluded on 3 December 1989.9 Five different companies were employed, under the leadership of Giampiero Pesenti’s Italcementi, which provided the ‘Aquila bianca’ cement to cover an area of 86,000 square metres for an overall cost of 5.643 billion lire. These are impressive figures; it was certainly one of the largest investments in culture in Sicily and in all of Italy, with a media impact– albeit not immediate – that has led to the inclusion today of the Cretto of Gibellina in the grand tour of international contemporary art.10 In the catalogue of the recent retrospective of Burri at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Emily Braun, the exhibition curator, says of the Cretto that it is “a white monochrome that speaks of purification,”11 a rite of purification, a shamanic act,12 that harks back to the founding act of a city.

This magnificent New York solo show dwelt on the concept of trauma – The Trauma of Painting was its vivid subtitle – according to a broadly accepted reading that roots interpretive texts in the events of the artist’s life, and interpreted Burri’s work as a metaphor for sutures. Personally I prefer not to yield to such a clear symmetry of life and art: of course, certain events should be given their just importance, such as Burri’s medical degree, his American experience, the concentration camp, his return to an Italy devastated by war, perhaps the very situation he recognised in Gibellina many years later, and for this he was so moved. But his Umbrian roots weigh in the other scale. Burri was a self-taught artist who grew up in the heart of Italy, where Piero della Francesca left an incomparable lesson of rigour and balance – the conviction of impeccable technique towards which every one of Burri’s works aspires. His attention to the early Renaissance focussed on the possible coexistence of simplicity and richness, of metallic elements – even at times gilded and embossed – applied to disciplined drawing and calibrated perspective. Burri certainly knew the detail of the ‘crackled’ mantle of the female worshipper in Piero della Francesca’s Polyptych of the Misericordia in Borgo Sansepolcro, but he was also familiar with innumerable fondi oro, often crazed by extensive craquelure. In 1961, when Giuseppe

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Umbria Vera 1952

39 × 58 3/4 in Burlap, oil on canvas Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, Genève

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Sabbia 1952

35 3/8 × 43 ¼ in Oil, sand, vinavil on canvas Collezione Intesa Sanpaolo Gallerie d’Italia - Piazza Scala, Milano

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Combustione Sacco 1956

50 3/4 Ă— 44 1/2 in Burlap, canvas, oil, vinavil, combustion on canvas Private collection

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Combustione 14 1957

31 3/4 Ă— 75 Âź in Paper, acrylic, vinavil, combustion on canvas Private collection

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Legno Sp 1958

51 Ă— 78 7/8 in Wood, canvas, acrylic, combustion, vinavil on canvas Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, CittĂ di Castello

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Combustione Plastica 1958

38 5/8 Ă— 33 1/8 in Plastic, fabric, acrylic, vinavil, combustion on canvas Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, CittĂ di Castello

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Cellotex 1979

59 Âź Ă— 49 3/4 in Celotex, acryilc, vinavil Private collection

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Cellotex CW 1 1981

99 ¼ × 240 1/8 in Celotex, acrylic, vinavil on board Private collection

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Nero 1987-88

59 Ă— 59 in Acrylic, pumice stone on celotex Private collection

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Nero e Oro 1993

41 3/4 Ă— 63 5/8 in Acrylic, gold foil, celotex on canvas Private collection

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Catalogue

NOTES For the cross-references in the exhibition and bibliographic entries in descriptions of the works see the notes in Volume VI of the publication Burri Catalogo generale [Burri General Catalogue], edited

by Bruno Corà and published by the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri in 2015.

With regard to the section on exhibitions, the ellipses indicate travelling exhibitions shown in several cities, whereas the superscripts refer to the chronological order within the same city and year; for bibliographies, the superscripts identify texts written by a particular author during the same year.

Catrame, [1949] Tar, oil, pumice stone on canvas 22 5/8 × 25 3/8 in Signed Private collection Bibliography Rubiu, 1963, p. 184 n. 15 ill. b/n; Krimmel1, 1967, pp. 6, 17 n. 1 tav. b/n, 37 n. 2; Krimmel2, 1967, pp. 6, 8; Calvesi1, 1971, p. 22 n. 3 tav. col.; Rubiu, 1975, p. 119 n. 2 tav. b/n; Quintavalle, 1984; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 20 n. 43, 21 ill. col.; Negri, Pirovano, 1993, p. 210 n. 270 ill. col.; Vetrocq, 1994, pp. 26, 42 n. 1 ill. col.; Appella, 1997, p. 3 ill. b/n; Cassim, 1998, p. 15 ill.; Kitatani, 2000, p. 37; Sarteanesi C.2, 2000, p. 145; Katō, 2000, p. 128; Burgazzoli, 2001, ill.; Michelon, 2001, p. 20 n. 2 ill.; Colombo, 2004, p. 20 nota 55; C. S., 2006, p. 73 ill.; Corà, 2007, p. 23; Quattrini, 2007, p. 19 ill.; Casanova, 2007, p. 107 n. 2 ill. col.; Perazzoli, 2007, p. 23 n. 3 ill. col; Fraccaro, 2007, p. 66 ill. col.; De Sabbata, 2008, pp. 30-31 tav. col., 31 n. 17; Celant, 2009, n. 31 ill. col. [Nero, 1951]; Corà, 2009, pp. 20, 22; Lumetta, 2009, p. 9 ill. col.; Corà1, 2010, p. 21; Gargiulo, 2010, p. 27; Daverio1, 2011, p. 33 tav. col.; Corà4, 2012, p. 86; Manescalchi1, 2013, cop. col., p. 90 ill. col.

Exhibitions Roma1, 1953 (dépl.); Darmstadt, 1967, n. 3 ill. b/n (cat.); Rotterdam, 1967, pp. 17 n. 1 tav. b/n, 37 n. 2 (cat.); Milano1, 1984, p. 26 n. 4 tav. col. (cat.); New York..., 1994-95, n. 1 ill. col. (cat.); ...Milano..., 1995; ...Wolfsburg, 1995; Roma2..., 199697, p. 147 tav. col. (cat.); ...Monaco di Baviera..., 1997 p. 147 tav. col. (cat.); ...Bruxelles, 1997; Nagoya..., 199798, pp. 35 n. 1 tav. col., 145 (cat.); ...Tokyo..., 1998; ...Tottori...,1998; ...Hiroshima..., 1998; ...Taipei, 1998, pp. 33 n. 1 tav. col., 137 (cat.); Toyota, 2000, pp. 42 n. 1 tav. col., 100 (cat.); Lugano, 2001-02, pp. 94, 95 tav. col., 187 n. 46 (cat.); Madrid, 2006, pp. 32, 33 tav. col. (cat.); Mamiano di Traversetolo, 2007, pp. 51 n. 1 tav. col., 122 (cat.); Lione, 2008-09, pp. 300 ill. col., 301 n. 164 (cat.); Catania, 2009-10, pp. 26, 27 tav. col., 210 (cat.); Milano3, 2010, p. 58 n. 33 tav. col. (cat.)

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Bianco, [1949] Oil, varnish, pumice stone on canvas 35 7/8 × 43 7/8 in Private collection Bibliography Rubiu, 1963, p. 184 n. 18 ill. b/n; Quintavalle, 1984; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 20 n. 44, 21 ill. col.; Christov-Bakargiev1, 1996, p. 54; Appella, 1997, p. 3; Sarteanesi C.2, 2000, p. 147; Corà4, 2012, p. 86 Exhibitions Bologna, 1976, n. 1 tav. b/n (cat.); Milano1, 1984, p. 25 n. 3 tav. col. (cat.); Roma2..., 1996-97, p. 149 tav. col. (cat.); ...Monaco di Baviera..., 1997, p. 149 tav. col. (cat.); ...Bruxelles, 1997; Toyota, 2000, pp. 43 n. 2 tav. col., 100 (cat.); Madrid, 2006, pp. 34, 35 tav. col. (cat.)

Nero Catrame, 1950 Tar, oil, varnish, burlap on canvas 31 ½ × 43 ¼ in Signed and dated Private collection, Rome Bibliography Brandi1, 1963, n. 1 tav. b/n; Nordland, 1977, pp. 20- 21; Averini, 1977, p. 63; Nordland2, 1978, p. 86; Nordland3, 1978, p. 31 ill. b/n; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 424 n. 1826, 425 ill. b/n; Vedrenne-Careri, 1992, p. 42; Farci, 1995, p. 8; Sarteanesi C., 1995, p. 27; Terrosi, 1995, p. 12 ill. b/n; Corà, 1996, p. 14 [Catrame]; Sarteanesi C., 1996, p. 22; Minervino, 1996, p. 27; Sarteanesi C.1, 2000, ill. col.; De Sabbata, 2008, pp. 40 n. 23, 40-41 tav. col.; Iori2, 2012, p. 148 Exhibitions Roma1, 1952 (dépl.); Beirut..., 1963, tav. b/n [Nero su nero] (cat.); ...Damasco..., 1964; ...Téhéran..., 1964; ...Ankara..., 1964; ...Tunisi, 1964; Roma, 1976, n. 3 tav. col. (cat.); Bologna, 1976, n. 2 ill. b/n (cat.); Lisbona, 1977, n. 3 ill. b/n (cat.); Madrid, 1977, n. 3 ill. b/n (cat.); Los Angeles..., 1977, p. 14 n. 6 ill. b/n (cat.); ...San Antonio..., 1978; ...Milwaukee..., 1978; ...New York, 1978; Roma1, 1980, pp. 148 n. 49, 149 tav. b/n (cat.); Prato, 1996, p. 99 n. 4 tav. col. (cat.)

Nero Bianco, 1951 Paper, oil, varnish, burlap on canvas 35 3/8 × 35 3/8 in Signed and dated Private collection

Sacco, 1952 Sack, oil, lire, AM-lire and vinavil on canvas 22 7/8 × 33 7/8 in Private collection

Bibliography Rubiu, 1963, p. 188 n. 47 ill. b/n; Quintavalle, 1984; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 42 n. 139, 43 ill. col.; Buscaroli B., 1995, ill. b/n; Corà, 1996, p. 14; Christov-Bakargiev1, 1996, p. 52; Sarteanesi C., 1996, p. 23; Höhn, 1996, cop. col.; Rizzi1, 1996, ill. b/n; Tellaroli, 2001, p. 116 ill. col.; Serafini, 2005, p. 27; De Sabbata, 2008, p. 106

Bibliography Gotham Guide, 1954, cop. b/n (amb.); Villa, 1960, p. 7 ill. b/n [Collage]; Rubiu, 1963, p. 191 n. 77 ill. b/n [Collage]; Fagiolo dell’Arco, 1966, p. 66; Calvesi1, 1971, p. 5; Calvesi2, 1971, p. 41; Garrone, 1972; The private collection of Martha Jackson, 1973, p. 3 ill. b/n (amb.); Rubiu, 1975, p. 119 n. 13 tav. b/n; Di Genova G., 1978, ill. b/n; Di Genova G., 1982, p. 177 nota 8 [Collage]; Calvesi1, 1987; Di Genova G., 1990, p. 202 nota 12 [Collage]; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 40 n. 135, 41 ill. col.; Terrosi, 1995, p. 10; ChristovBakargiev1, 1996, p. 50 ill. b/n; Serafini, 1999, p. 45; Appella2, 2003, p. 9; Quintavalle, 2003, p. 248 ill. col.; Serafini, 2005, p. 27; Zancan, 2005, p. 24 ill. b/n; Fabbri M. C., 2005, ill.; Celant1, 2007, p. 10 n. 10 ill. col.; Calvesi1, 2008, p. 20; De Sabbata, 2008, pp. 180-181 tav. col.; Daverio1, 2011, pp. 42, 43 ill. col.; Iori2, 2012, p. 170; Finizio, 2013, pp. 18, 19 n. 7 ill. b/n

Exhibitions Milano1, 1984, p. 33 n. 11 tav. col. (cat.); Prato, 1996, p. 102 n. 7 tav. col. (cat.); Firenze, 2005, p. 67 n. 14 tav. col. (cat.)

Exhibitions New York1, 1953; New York2, 1953; New York1, 1954 (dépl.); Bologna2, 2003, pp. 24, 25 tav. col. (cat.); Acqui Terme, 2003, p. 47 tav. col. (cat.); Torino2, 2003, p. 18 n. 4, 19 tav. col., 135 (cat.); Firenze, 2005, p. 77 n. 19 tav. col. (cat.)

Grande Sacco, 1952 Burlap, fabric, oil, rope on canvas 59 × 98 3/8 in Signed and dated Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Roma (donation by the artist) Bibliography Villa, 1953, ill. b/n; F. P., 1953, p. 41 ill. b/n; Arcangeli1, 1957; Priori, 1957; Venturoli, 1959, [Sacco grande]; Brandi1, 1963, n. 14 tav. b/n; Fagiolo dell’Arco, 1966, p. 67; Savonuzzi, 1967; Pinto2, 1968, pp. 18 n. 3 ill. b/n (amb.), 19, 20 n. 5 ill. b/n, nota 2; Ruggeri, 1969; Vincenti, 1969, p. 27 ill. col.; De Marchis, 1970; Pinto, 1970, nota 12; Calvesi1, 1971, p. 22 n. 11 tav. col.; Lambertini2, 1971; Bucarelli, 1973, p. 131; Rubiu, 1975, pp. 11, 119 n. 14 tav. b/n; Mantura1, 1976, p. 9; Giannattasio, 1976; Micacchi, 1976; Trucchi1, 1976, ill. b/n; Morini, 1976, p. 3 ill. b/n; Bramanti, 1976; Argan, 1976; Novi, 1976; Bortolon, 1976, p. 51; Guzzinati, 1976, p. 46; Montealegre, 1976, p. 48 n. 1 ill. b/n [1956]; Nordland, 1977, pp. 31, 32-33; Arcangeli, 1977, n. 75 tav. b/n; Ucla Daily Bruin, 1977, p. 2; Averini, 1977, p. 63; Lambertini, 1978; Nordland2, 1978, p. 90; Nordland3, 1978, pp. 34, 35; Bramanti, 1979, p. 9; De Feo, 1980, p. 152; De Marchis, 1982, p. 585, n. 499 ill. b/n; Argan, 1982, p. 39; Rosini, Gandini, [1982]; Trucchi2, 1982, p. 83 ill. b/n [1972]; Pirovano2, 1984, p. 191; Fréchuret, 1987, p. 157 ill. col.; Dentice, 1987, p. 130; Ercoli, 1987, p. 3; Calza, Maffini, 1988, p. 277 ill. col.; Buratti, 1988, p. 134; Volpi, 1988, p. 5 ill. b/n; De Dominicis, 1989, p. 483; Hollingsworth, 1989, pp. 474-475 n. 20 ill. col.; Celant2, 1990, pp. 16 ill. col., 371-372; Christov- Bakargiev, 1990, p. 23; Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri, 1990, pp. 36 n. 114, 37 ill. col.; Zevi, 1990; Gianelli, 1991, p. 7 ill. b/n; Curto, 1991; Cilli, 1991, pp. 62-63 ill. b/n; Minervino, 1991, p. 96; Negri, Pirovano, 1993, p. 214 n. 278 ill. col.; Engelke, 1993, pp. 4 n. 3 ill. col., 6; Castellano, 1994, pp. 79- 80, 83 nota 3, 289 n. 18 ill. col.; Piccioni G., 1994, p. 19; Ferraris Rosazza, 1995, p. 45; Gallian2, 1995; Sarteanesi C., 1995, p. 25; Zorzi1, 1995, pp. 35, 46, 47, 48; D’Amico, 1995, p. 33; Zorzi2, 1995, p. 16; Rosci2, 1995; Pancera, 1995, p. 86; Christov-Bakargiev1, 1996, pp. 49, 51, 52; Sarteanesi C., 1996, p. 23; D’Amico, 1996; Gigliotti, 1996, p. 32; Ghezzi, 1997, p. 212 n. 62 ill. b/n; Pinto, Piantoni, 1997, ill. col.; Sarteanesi C.5, 1998, p. 87 [Grande Bianco]; Serafini, 1999, pp. 12, 13, 40, 56, 58 ill. col., 59, 242 n. 38; Morelli,

1999, p. 20 ill. b/n; Sarteanesi C.1, 2000, ill. col.; Pontiggia, 2001, p. 9 [Sacco]; Corgnati, 2001, p. 18; Fagiolo dell’Arco, 2002, p. 61; Nakai1, 2002, p. 215; Sensi, 2002, p. 39; Forti, 2003, p. 39, nota 8; Fagiolo dell’Arco, 2003, p. 40; Casero, 2004, pp. 378379 ill. col.; Colombo, 2004, pp. 11 n. 10 ill. b/n, 20 nota 55; Calvesi3, 2005, p. 17; Picciau, 2005, p. 27; Vernizzi, 2005, p. 13; Carboni, 2005, p. 213; Barbuto, 2005, p. 315 n. 23.3 ill. col.; Zevi, 2005, p. 31; Madeo, 2005, p. 101; Diez, 2005, p. 152 [Sacco]; Pirani, 2006, p. 134; Neira, 2006, p. 34; Palumbo, 2007, pp. 53, 70, 103; Casanova, 2007, p. 106; Calvesi1, 2008, p. 21; Tomassoni, 2008, p. 52 [Sacco]; Vettese, 2008, pp. 175 n. 18, 176-177 tav. col.; De Sabbata, 2008, pp. 26, 133, 136-137 tav. col., 138, 139 tav. col. (part.); Masoero, 2008, p. 47; Margozzi, 2009, p. 32 [Grosso Sacco]; Marini Clarelli, 2009, p. 11; Ferrario, 2010, pp. 131, 194, 203, 205, 206, 237, 309 nota 25; Panichi, 2010, pp. 73-74; Valentini, 2011, pp. 99, 102, 104, 105, 108; Colombo, 2011, p. 235; Gazzola, 2011, pp. 24, 26; Iori2, 2012, pp. 148, 149, 152, 162, 167, 176, 183 e-f, 191; Lorenzoni, 2012, pp. 218, 222, 223, 224; Sensi, 2012, p. 33; Finizio, 2013, p. 76 n. 40 ill. b/n Exhibitions New York2, 1953; Bologna..., 1957 (dépl.); ...Torino2..., 1957 (dépl.); ...Brescia, 1958; Venezia, 1964, p. 21 n. 1, VI tav. b/n (cat.); Roma, 1976, n. 6 tav. col. (cat.); Lisbona, 1977, n. 6 ill. col. (cat.); Madrid, 1977, n. 6 ill. col. (cat.); Los Angeles..., 1977, p. 20 n. 12 ill. b/n (cat.); ...San Antonio..., 1978; ...Milwaukee..., 1978; ...New York, 1978; Madrid, 1980, n. 18 tav. col. (cat.); Colonia, 1981, p. 420 n. 476 a (cat.); Milano1, 1984, p. 46 n. 24 tav. col. (cat.); Ravenna, 1985, p. 34 tav. col. (cat.); Saint-Étienne, 1987-88, pp. 157 ill. col., 309 (cat.); Francavilla al Mare, 1988, tav. b/n (cat.); Roma, 1990-91, p. 49 tav. col. (cat.); Ferrara, 1995-96, p. 59 n. 12 tav. col. (cat.); Roma2..., 1996-97, p. 164 tav. col. (cat.); ...Monaco di Baviera..., 1997, p. 164 tav. col. (cat.); ...Bruxelles, 1997; Tokyo, 2001, p. 89 ill. col.; Nuoro, 2005, n. 5 tav. col. (cat.); Madrid, 2006, pp. 44, 45 tav. col. (cat.); Roma, 2009, pp. 150 ill. col, 179 (cat.); Roma1, 2011, p. 108 (cat.)

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Biography

Alberto Burri was born in Città di Castello, near Perugia, on the 12 March 1915. His father, Pietro Burri, was a wine merchant, and his mother, Carolina Torreggiani, an elementary schoolteacher. He graduated in Medical studies at the University of Perugia in 1940. A volunteer medical officer in the Italian army, he was captured by the Allies in Tunisia in 1943 and was a prisoner of war at Camp Hereford, Texas, USA. There he decided to abandon the medical profession in favour of painting. When he returned to Italy, in 1946, he continued painting and settled in Rome, where he had his first solo exhibitions in 1947 and 1948. In 1948 he abandoned figuration definitively in favour of abstraction and became concerned with the expressive potential of raw materials. In 1950, he created his first Sacchi [Sacks], works that came to dominate his following solo exhibitions, which were held in various American and European cities as well as in Rome. In 1951 he founded the Gruppo Origine with Mario Ballocco, Giuseppe Capogrossi and Ettore Colla: the group split up the same night. In 1952 he made his first appearance at the Venice Biennale, to which he was invited again in 1956, 1958, 1960, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1984, 1986 and 1988. In 1995 his work was included in the exhibition Venezia e la Biennale. I percorsi del gusto, at the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, on the occasion of the 46th (centenary) Venice Biennale. Between 1952 and 1953, Burri’s art attracted international attention with shows in New York and Chicago.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he created various cycles of works by using fire on different raw materials. Thus, the Combustioni [Combustions], the Legni [Woods], the Ferri [Irons] and the Plastiche [Plastics] took shape. In the 1970s, while his work continued to be shown at solo and group exhibitions at some of the most prestigious museums in the world – including the Museo Civico di Torino (1971), the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris (1972), the Triennale di Milano (1973), the Tate Gallery in London (1974), the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome (1976) and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1978) – he developed the Cretti and the Cellotex cycles.

In the late 1970s, Burri realised a series of complex cyclical works that retraced the different stages of his artistic career. The first group, collectively titled Il Viaggio [The Journey], was shown in Città di Castello in 1979 and in Munich the following year. The cycles that followed this include the Orti (1980) series, Sestante (1983), Rosso e Nero (1984), Annottarsi (1985-1987), Metamorfotex (1991) and Il Nero e l’Oro (1991-1993).

He established the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri in Città di Castello, as a gift to his town, in 1978. In this building he exhibited a permanent collection of specially chosen works whose installation was curated by him and remains unchanged to this day.

In 1984, for the Grande Brera Project aimed at the contemporary sector, Milan hosted the first comprehensive retrospective of Burri’s work at Palazzo Citterio.

In 1989, the Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini acquired the former Seccatoi del Tabacco (tobacco-curing warehouses) in Città di Castello. These industrial architectural structures became the perfect containers for monumental cycles of site-specific paintings and sculptures, created by the artist as a way of complementing the historical core of works on show at Palazzo Albizzini.

Alberto Burri died in Nice on 13 February 1995.

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Fondazione Palazzo Albizzini Collezione Burri

In collaboration with

euro 50,00

Paola Sapone MCIA

ENG

ISBN 978-88-99534-96-7