Early life
Alberto Burri born 12 March 1915 in Città di Castello, Italy, died 13 February 1995 in Nice, France was an Italian painter and sculptor. Alberto Burri was born in Città di Castello, in Umbria in 1915. He earned a medical degree from the University of Perugia specializing in tropical medicine. On 12 October 1940, two days after Italy entered World War II, Burri was called up as a medic and sent to Libya. On 8 May 1943 after the Axis forces were defeated at El Alamein, his unit was captured in Tunisia. He was interned in Camp Howze prisoner of war camp in Gainesville, Texas, where he began to paint. World War II had caused chaos on Italy. The country's resources had run low. Artists began to use their work as a way to revisit the past and the future of a country trying to find assurance in itself. Painters, poets and intellectuals formed new groups, cultural associations invited new theories, paving the way for a brand new platform for art. |
Personal life
Burri was married to American dancer Minsa Craig. In 1963, they began spending winters in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles and the remainder of the year in Italy. In 1991, they settled in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and moved between there and Italy. The couple kept two houses in Città di Castello, one in the city center, another in the countryside, so that Burri could pursue one of his favourite pastimes, hunting. Burri died from a respiratory failure at Pasteur Hospital in Nice in February 1995 at the age of 79; he suffered from emphysema. Also known as chronic obstructive lung disease, and chronic obstructive airway disease, among others, is a type of obstructive lung disease characterized by chronically poor airflow. It typically worsens over time. The main symptoms include shortness of breath, cough, and sputum production.
The POW experience
Burri, a young Italian doctor and a member of the Fascist Party was transformed by the dramatic and painful experience of being a prisoner of war in an American camp. Even though his political views changed dramatically after the war, he remained mute on the subject. Instead, he embarked on a lifelong creative journey. He used the limited materials available to him at the camp, converting them into pieces of art marked by his experience of turmoil and violence.
The POW camps offered a much easier life to Italian prisoners compared to their German and Japanese counterparts. They were allowed to mix with the local Italian-American community, were offered recreational activities such as building religious altars, playing soccer or tending to vegetable gardens. As an officer, Burri was exempt from manual labor, but he was not permitted to practice medicine; like many of his fellow officers, he took up painting. He became a part of a group of Italian detainee-artists assigned to repaint a local church. In many ways Burri's increasing involvement in art, allowed him to resign completely from medicine upon his return to Italy.
Work
Burri's first paintings were views of the desert he could see from the prison camp and still life with paints and canvases supplied by the YMCA. He primarily painted "nostalgic Umbrian landscapes and figures", as Milton Gendel described in an Art news issue published in 1954. He collected old burlap sacks and brought them with him upon his return to Italy and continued to use them in place of canvas. Burlap, a symbol of the war itself was a cheap and durable material used for tents, supplies, sacks, sandbags and camouflage netting during the war. He continued to use burlap, having a supply from the local miller.
After his release in 1946, Burri moved to Rome to pursue a full-time career as painter, despite the disapproval of most his friends and family. He joined his cousin, a musician and sole supporter in his decision, who helped to connect him with the Roman art circles. However, he was a very private and solitary artist, working incessantly. Milton Gendel, an American critic living in Rome, visited Burri’s studio in 1954 and described the atmosphere: “The studio is thick-walled, whitewashed, neat and ascetic; his work is ‘blood and flesh,’ reddened torn fabric that seems to parallel the staunching of wounds that Burri experienced in wartime.” Burri was influenced by his contemporary Enrico Prampolini, whose involvement in Dada and Surrealism shaped Burri's approach to art. Burri had also been attracted to the Italian concept of "poly materialism" or the ability of a single work of art to contain a variety of material effects. In order to push the limitations of a flat painting.
Burri started investigating the use of non-traditional materials such as burlap, wood, tar, plastic, zinc oxide, pumice, kaolin, PVC adhesives, cellotex and fabric in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s, Burri introduced charred wood into his burlap works, followed by scrap iron sheets fixed onto the wood, as well as colored and transparent sheets of plastic. In the 1970s he began his "cracked" paintings, or cretti. He created a series of works in the industrial insulating material, Celotex, from 1979 through the 1990s.
In part, the use of these materials reflects Burri's tendency as a scientist, creating results that he desired in a controlled environment and his extensive knowledge of chemicals. Burri was obsessed with the materiality of his works. It is no surprise then that he chose to title his works on the name of the substance used to make the piece of art or the method used to create the desired effect.
In the 1980s, Burri created a form of land art project on the town of Gibellina in Sicily. The town was abandoned following the 1968 Belice earthquake, with the inhabitants being rehoused in a newly built town 18 km away. Burri covered an area of over 120,000 square metres (1,300,000 sq ft), most of the old town, and an area roughly 300 metres by 400 metres with white concrete. He called this the Grande Cretto.
Burri was married to American dancer Minsa Craig. In 1963, they began spending winters in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles and the remainder of the year in Italy. In 1991, they settled in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, and moved between there and Italy. The couple kept two houses in Città di Castello, one in the city center, another in the countryside, so that Burri could pursue one of his favourite pastimes, hunting. Burri died from a respiratory failure at Pasteur Hospital in Nice in February 1995 at the age of 79; he suffered from emphysema. Also known as chronic obstructive lung disease, and chronic obstructive airway disease, among others, is a type of obstructive lung disease characterized by chronically poor airflow. It typically worsens over time. The main symptoms include shortness of breath, cough, and sputum production.
The POW experience
Burri, a young Italian doctor and a member of the Fascist Party was transformed by the dramatic and painful experience of being a prisoner of war in an American camp. Even though his political views changed dramatically after the war, he remained mute on the subject. Instead, he embarked on a lifelong creative journey. He used the limited materials available to him at the camp, converting them into pieces of art marked by his experience of turmoil and violence.
The POW camps offered a much easier life to Italian prisoners compared to their German and Japanese counterparts. They were allowed to mix with the local Italian-American community, were offered recreational activities such as building religious altars, playing soccer or tending to vegetable gardens. As an officer, Burri was exempt from manual labor, but he was not permitted to practice medicine; like many of his fellow officers, he took up painting. He became a part of a group of Italian detainee-artists assigned to repaint a local church. In many ways Burri's increasing involvement in art, allowed him to resign completely from medicine upon his return to Italy.
Work
Burri's first paintings were views of the desert he could see from the prison camp and still life with paints and canvases supplied by the YMCA. He primarily painted "nostalgic Umbrian landscapes and figures", as Milton Gendel described in an Art news issue published in 1954. He collected old burlap sacks and brought them with him upon his return to Italy and continued to use them in place of canvas. Burlap, a symbol of the war itself was a cheap and durable material used for tents, supplies, sacks, sandbags and camouflage netting during the war. He continued to use burlap, having a supply from the local miller.
After his release in 1946, Burri moved to Rome to pursue a full-time career as painter, despite the disapproval of most his friends and family. He joined his cousin, a musician and sole supporter in his decision, who helped to connect him with the Roman art circles. However, he was a very private and solitary artist, working incessantly. Milton Gendel, an American critic living in Rome, visited Burri’s studio in 1954 and described the atmosphere: “The studio is thick-walled, whitewashed, neat and ascetic; his work is ‘blood and flesh,’ reddened torn fabric that seems to parallel the staunching of wounds that Burri experienced in wartime.” Burri was influenced by his contemporary Enrico Prampolini, whose involvement in Dada and Surrealism shaped Burri's approach to art. Burri had also been attracted to the Italian concept of "poly materialism" or the ability of a single work of art to contain a variety of material effects. In order to push the limitations of a flat painting.
Burri started investigating the use of non-traditional materials such as burlap, wood, tar, plastic, zinc oxide, pumice, kaolin, PVC adhesives, cellotex and fabric in the late 1940s. In the mid-1950s, Burri introduced charred wood into his burlap works, followed by scrap iron sheets fixed onto the wood, as well as colored and transparent sheets of plastic. In the 1970s he began his "cracked" paintings, or cretti. He created a series of works in the industrial insulating material, Celotex, from 1979 through the 1990s.
In part, the use of these materials reflects Burri's tendency as a scientist, creating results that he desired in a controlled environment and his extensive knowledge of chemicals. Burri was obsessed with the materiality of his works. It is no surprise then that he chose to title his works on the name of the substance used to make the piece of art or the method used to create the desired effect.
In the 1980s, Burri created a form of land art project on the town of Gibellina in Sicily. The town was abandoned following the 1968 Belice earthquake, with the inhabitants being rehoused in a newly built town 18 km away. Burri covered an area of over 120,000 square metres (1,300,000 sq ft), most of the old town, and an area roughly 300 metres by 400 metres with white concrete. He called this the Grande Cretto.
Techniques
Burri experimented with his unique organization with the Sacchi, his first creations. Cutting, tearing, and stitching the burlap's membrane like surface, often riddled with holes, or punctures made by the artist laid the foundation of his techniques. The cut and torn Sacchi, stitched together, was understood by many contemporaries as an allusion to Italy's recent traumatic past, both to the very real disasters of the war and more metaphorically to the crisis of painting in the post-war period. The surface of the Sacchi were also read as wounds, cut and torn, then stitched and sutured. Burri's experience as an army doctor informed this dynamic wounding and repair of the burlap's surface. The artwork in many ways assumed the metaphor of skin that went through a process of scarring and healing simultaneously. But on the other hand the artwork was also transformed because of the sheer materiality of the rough burlap. Burri's works were also covered by different kinds of stitches. Sometimes they could be hand-stitched in the style of a surgeon, on other occasions the machine drilled through the surface of painting to stitch parts of the burlap together. The techniques that Burri mastered with Burlap were later applied to cut, stitch or glue together other materials like wood, tar, cellotex and plastic. Burri also started burning or torching the surface of different materials to introduce distortions, or welding them to bring them together (especially in the case of iron and wood), and puncturing them through obvious cuts and holes drilled into the canvas. He often discretely spattered the composition with red paint, black oil, or small touches of yellow or white.
Burri experimented with his unique organization with the Sacchi, his first creations. Cutting, tearing, and stitching the burlap's membrane like surface, often riddled with holes, or punctures made by the artist laid the foundation of his techniques. The cut and torn Sacchi, stitched together, was understood by many contemporaries as an allusion to Italy's recent traumatic past, both to the very real disasters of the war and more metaphorically to the crisis of painting in the post-war period. The surface of the Sacchi were also read as wounds, cut and torn, then stitched and sutured. Burri's experience as an army doctor informed this dynamic wounding and repair of the burlap's surface. The artwork in many ways assumed the metaphor of skin that went through a process of scarring and healing simultaneously. But on the other hand the artwork was also transformed because of the sheer materiality of the rough burlap. Burri's works were also covered by different kinds of stitches. Sometimes they could be hand-stitched in the style of a surgeon, on other occasions the machine drilled through the surface of painting to stitch parts of the burlap together. The techniques that Burri mastered with Burlap were later applied to cut, stitch or glue together other materials like wood, tar, cellotex and plastic. Burri also started burning or torching the surface of different materials to introduce distortions, or welding them to bring them together (especially in the case of iron and wood), and puncturing them through obvious cuts and holes drilled into the canvas. He often discretely spattered the composition with red paint, black oil, or small touches of yellow or white.
Gallery of some of his work
Analysis
The genre of this piece of work is abstract I would say this because of the fact that it has no relation to the real world and it is all made up, I would also say that I would come under the category of surrealism.
This image show us a lot of different techniques, they are burning and ripping. Also there lots of different layers to the image as there has been a few different materials used, from what I can see they are diffrnt types of plastic from different places. what this reminds me of is something like burning flesh or something like that, this is because of the fact that there are holes and rips and cuts all over the plastic just like if your skin was burning. the reason why I chose this piece, to go in to detail about was because the detail of that has been put into this, although it is a bit crazy and all over the place, it make the idea of the piece a lot more interesting and exiting to talk about. Also what I like about this creation is Burri's crazy techniques that he has used, from what I can tell he like to go am little over the top whit his creations. The focal point of this creation is right slap bang in the middle, the reason for this is because of the abnormality of it draw your eye into as it is so strange. There is an asymmetrical creation as there I nothing that is the same on it at all. The colours that have been used are mainly orange, which is the dominate colour, but as the plastic has been burnt it has made lots of charred areas on the plastic. The mood that the colours give are a sort of dark and scary mood to the work. |