Sacco, Combustione, Cretto
Sack 5P - 1953 - Alberto Burri It is inevitable that artists disappear over time as cultural landscapes change and issues that were once relevant lose their urgency. Sometimes they are made to reappear by some enterprising soul in a position of influence in the art world if an opportunity presents itself to further their program. It seems when the barrel of ideas runs dry then the past can always be mined for its novelty or nostalgia value.
Many artists have been resurrected and subjected to revision and or derision in order to further some academic theory or pet project. Fortunately, Alberto Burri, one of my favorite artists hasn't suffered too greatly at the hands of the culture machine. I'm thankful that for the most part they have left him alone and his significance intact. Fortunately, Postmodernist and Post Conceptualist concerns have been so distracted by their own importance that they have left Burri's legacy intact. We are free today to see his work in a clear light from a distance for what it really is, unlike other artists who have suffered theoretical erosion.
Many artists have been resurrected and subjected to revision and or derision in order to further some academic theory or pet project. Fortunately, Alberto Burri, one of my favorite artists hasn't suffered too greatly at the hands of the culture machine. I'm thankful that for the most part they have left him alone and his significance intact. Fortunately, Postmodernist and Post Conceptualist concerns have been so distracted by their own importance that they have left Burri's legacy intact. We are free today to see his work in a clear light from a distance for what it really is, unlike other artists who have suffered theoretical erosion.
Burri had originally studied tropical medicine but in 1944 was captured along with his unit in Tunisia after being conscripted into the Italian army in 1940. It was while he was incarcerated as a prisoner of war in Texas in the USA that he began to paint and make art and made the connection with "burlap" a material with which he would develop a close affinity and incorporate into his developing art, titling these works as "sacco." After his release he returned to Italy but decided to pursue art rather than a career in medicine. Personally, i'm glad he did, although we have no idea what he might have been able to accomplish as a physician! Burri's decision alienated him somewhat from his family and friends but today we have a remarkably unique body of work to inspire us that might not otherwise exist if not for his sense of destiny and persistence.
Below is a short video of Burri getting up close and personal with the "Celotex" plastic that he loved to melt and burn into beautiful compositions.
Below is a short video of Burri getting up close and personal with the "Celotex" plastic that he loved to melt and burn into beautiful compositions.
Bianco Cretto - 1975 - Alberto Burri Much of the extant writing about Burri concerns the resemblance of his art to bloody wounds, gauze bandaging, suturing, incisions and all things bodily and visceral at that! Many writers insist on a "psycho-analytical" interpretation of Burri's art being concerned with the artist working through medical experiences and trauma from the war but i'm mostly doubtful about that. Burri himself who seemed to be against interpretation and image said, "I see beauty and that is all!" We should pay attention to what he says and see his work as an enterprise in turning common materials into beautiful surfaces no matter what we think they might be analogous to.
Burri was a master of materials and scale and whether the piece was a few centimeters wide or meters square he was a genius at making the material stand as if it had self materialized and been there forever. His sensitivity to composition and use of materials put Burri in a league of his own and actually make him the forerunner to Abstract Expressionism in the USA and Arte Povera in Europe which came later. There is no doubt in my mind that his inclusion in the 1953-54 New York exhibition, "Younger European Painters: A Selection At The Guggenheim," at the Guggenheim museum had a direct effect on the nascent US abstract art movement. When i look at the work of De Kooning, Clifford Still, Arshile Gorky, Louise Bourgeois and Lee Bontecou i see Burri in their pictorial strategies and i think this isn't incidental. His 1963 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston Texas and a traveling retrospective in 1978 at the Solomon R Guggenheim museum also would have made a big impact influencing peers and the younger generation. I believe his original approach to constructing surfaces was recognized and mimicked in two generations of American and European artists establishing him as an enduring force in the legacy of 20th and 21st century art.
Below is a short video of a Burri exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Burri was a master of materials and scale and whether the piece was a few centimeters wide or meters square he was a genius at making the material stand as if it had self materialized and been there forever. His sensitivity to composition and use of materials put Burri in a league of his own and actually make him the forerunner to Abstract Expressionism in the USA and Arte Povera in Europe which came later. There is no doubt in my mind that his inclusion in the 1953-54 New York exhibition, "Younger European Painters: A Selection At The Guggenheim," at the Guggenheim museum had a direct effect on the nascent US abstract art movement. When i look at the work of De Kooning, Clifford Still, Arshile Gorky, Louise Bourgeois and Lee Bontecou i see Burri in their pictorial strategies and i think this isn't incidental. His 1963 retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston Texas and a traveling retrospective in 1978 at the Solomon R Guggenheim museum also would have made a big impact influencing peers and the younger generation. I believe his original approach to constructing surfaces was recognized and mimicked in two generations of American and European artists establishing him as an enduring force in the legacy of 20th and 21st century art.
Below is a short video of a Burri exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.
Rosso Plastica - 1964 - Alberto Burri Although Burri is lumped together with others into the art historical category of "Art Informal" he didn't exactly view himself as part of this movement or subscribe to its tenets. He was a loner for the most part and worked independently from groups and i think this isolation enabled him to stand apart from all that was happening in turbulent post WW2 Europe and develop his unique "materialist" vision. His work is frequently compared to another artist Antoni Tapies the prominent star in this category but Burri's philosophical premise is different. Tapies' art is steeped in alchemy and magic incorporating painterly strategies and "cryptic symbology" whereas Burri is working from a humanist, materialist tradition. That existential sensibility had begun to blur the traditional genres in art such as sculpture, painting and drawing from as early as Picasso's first collage pieces, Vladimir Tatlins' constructs and Kurt Schwitters' early experiments with built environments. There were others experimenting with built, wall hung surfaces from early in the century such as Louise Nevelson, Jean Dubuffet, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp and from the late fifties Robert Rauschenberg with his "combines" for whom Burri was an exemplar.
Burri wasn't working in a vacuum and would've been exposed to some of these international developments as he travelled regularly between the USA, France and Italy where he would've seen the latest contemporary trends in art. Whether stitching burlap sacking together then adhering it to surfaces, burning and shaping melted plastic materials with a blow torch or using ceramic materials to coat surfaces that later cracked from drying, creating crazed visual patterns, Burri was focused on the "human" experience of material textures and surfaces. This is in sharp contrast to the mystical tryst with the "void" that his famous fellow Italian Lucio Fontana was promulgating with his "slashed" and "punctured" canvases.
Burri wasn't working in a vacuum and would've been exposed to some of these international developments as he travelled regularly between the USA, France and Italy where he would've seen the latest contemporary trends in art. Whether stitching burlap sacking together then adhering it to surfaces, burning and shaping melted plastic materials with a blow torch or using ceramic materials to coat surfaces that later cracked from drying, creating crazed visual patterns, Burri was focused on the "human" experience of material textures and surfaces. This is in sharp contrast to the mystical tryst with the "void" that his famous fellow Italian Lucio Fontana was promulgating with his "slashed" and "punctured" canvases.
Burri received awards and significant recognition in his lifetime and helped establish a museum by contributing a large body of his work and funding to his hometown of Citta di Castello. He received both the UNESCO prize in Sao Paulo and the Premio delle' Ariete prize in Milan in 1959. The next year he had a solo show at the Venice Biennale and received the Critics award and later in 1994 received the Order of Merit of The Italian Republic. His presence waned somewhat for 30 years as Minimalism and Conceptual art ran their course but i'm glad to announce that there is renewed interest recently in this Italian master with new exhibitions slated for 2015.
Alberto Burri is an inspiration to me for pursuing his "thing" whether with "natural" or "synthetic" materials. His approach to image making shakes up the traditional notion of what a "picture" is or is supposed to be. He constructs complex surfaces with the seeming ease of fluid paint, a maestro at extracting amazing beauty from base natural and industrial materials. Somehow his art seems to bridge the ages, a marriage of both Earthly and Heavenly concerns and maybe this is what we feel, the creative rigor of Burri's classical sensibility imbued in the work suspending us between the real and imagined for all time!
Alberto Burri is an inspiration to me for pursuing his "thing" whether with "natural" or "synthetic" materials. His approach to image making shakes up the traditional notion of what a "picture" is or is supposed to be. He constructs complex surfaces with the seeming ease of fluid paint, a maestro at extracting amazing beauty from base natural and industrial materials. Somehow his art seems to bridge the ages, a marriage of both Earthly and Heavenly concerns and maybe this is what we feel, the creative rigor of Burri's classical sensibility imbued in the work suspending us between the real and imagined for all time!
Check out the Scala Image Archive for Alberto Burri here
and this video interview about Alberto Burri with Roberta Cremoncini, director of the Estorick Collection.
https://vimeo.com/38420147
and this video interview about Alberto Burri with Roberta Cremoncini, director of the Estorick Collection.
https://vimeo.com/38420147
