Alberto Burri ― Black Work: Cellotex 1972-1992

A distinctive feature of Alberto Burri’s artistic imagery: the treatment of black in his Cellotex works. Through a selection of thirty works made in a twenty-year time span (1972–92), the volume offers a perspective on the expressive outcomes that marked Alberto Burri’s language after the 1950s and 1960s, at a time in which he had already gained international critical acclaim. Cellotex, which the artist had long used as a support for his compositions, became the "work" itself. Through a gradual process of stripping down, Burri reached the basic underlying element, i.e. the material that had previously been approached in view of something else. As is the case with his more iconic cycles (such as Sacchi, Legni, and Combustioni plastiche), matter here continues to be the undisputed protagonist, capable of setting the rules and of fixing compositional balances.

Bruno Cora is a renowned Italian art critic and is a member of the Burri Foundation.