Alberto Burri, Grande sacco (Large Sack) (1952). Photo: Antonio Idini, Soprintendenza alla Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna e Contemporanea, Rome, courtesy Ministero dei Beni e le Attività Culturali e del Turismo

The chasm between experience and representation seeps through the full expanse of The Trauma of Painting, a major Alberto Burri retrospective at the Guggenheim, an ambitious exhibition that’s as much an exploration in process as it is an embodiment of wartime and its brutal demands on humanity. Born in 1915 in the Italian town of Città di Castello, Umbria, a region steeped in the grandeur of Renaissance art, Burri’s early years were overshadowed by both World Wars.  While beginning his career as a doctor, his capture by the British and his internment in Texas during WWII propelled him into painting.  Without a formal artistic education, Burri developed a practice stemming from his training as a physician, evoking elements of abjection and corporeal tactility. (more…)

Alberto Burri, Black Cellotex (1986-87), via ArtCritical

For much of his artistic career, Italian painter Alberto Burri worked broadly with Cellotex, a compressed particle board that was used primarily in construction projects after the conclusion of World War II.  Sharing the sensibilities of his Arte Povera compatriots, Burri embraced the material’s easy accessibility and ubiquitous presence in the reconstruction of the country.  Using Cellotex, Burri would create painting after painting that worked beyond the limits of the flat plane of the canvas, bringing the heavily layered paint of his works out into the room.

Alberto Burri, Black Cellotex (Installation View), via Luxembourg and Dayan

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Lucio Fontana, Concetto Spaziale, Attese (1968). All images via Haunch of Venison and the estates of the artists.

The Elena Geuna curated “Afro Burri Fontana” exhibition is on now at Haunch of Venison‘s Chelsea space, 550 W. 21 St, and focuses on Italian artists Afro, Alberto Burri, and Lucio Fontana. Showing five paintings by each artist, Haunch’s international director Emilio Steinberger explained that the gallery sought to create a balanced show that would make evident the original dialogue between the three post-WWII Italian abstract artists and their American contemporaries.

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