Alberto Burri Italian, 1915-1995
Overview
Alberto Burri (1915–1995) radically transformed the trajectory of postwar painting, rejecting the gestural abstraction and symbolic content of his contemporaries in favor of a new material realism. Subverting traditional artistic processes and materials, Burri subjected burlap, plastic, wood, and other everyday substances to acts of slashing, burning, melting, and stitching, collapsing the boundaries between painting and sculpture to disrupt the illusion of the pictorial field. While his surfaces often evoke scars, ruptured skin, scorched earth, or other traces of destruction, Burri firmly resisted interpretations that linked his work directly to the trauma of the Second World War. He developed a distinct material realism that diverged sharply from the emotive, existentialist impulses of postwar gestural abstraction. By blurring the boundaries between painting and relief sculpture, he redefined both the conceptual and material possibilities of the monochrome. In the mid-1950s, Burri began incorporating mass-produced industrial materials in standardized, prefabricated colors, marking a radical departure from traditional artistic media. He pioneered a technique of painting through combustion, producing torched wood veneer works (Legni); welded reliefs from cold-rolled steel (Ferri); and compositions formed from melted and charred plastic (Combustioni plastiche). These works embodied a new, materially driven visual language that challenged conventional distinctions between painting, sculpture, and industrial process. Burri’s pioneering practice laid critical groundwork for subsequent movements including Arte Povera, Neo-Dada, and Process Art.
Exhibitions
