Alberto Burri: The Art of the Matter Judith Rozner A thesis submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Volume I – Text Volume II - Illustration March 2015 School of Culture and Communication. The University of Melbourne. Produced on archival quality paper i VOLUME I ii For Avraham and Malka Ur iii iv ABSTRACT "Alberto Burri, an Italian artist of the immediate post WWII period, introduced common, everyday materials into his art. In so doing material became both the subject of his work as well as the object out of which the work was made. This thesis argues that the primary purpose of Burri's work throughout his career was to provoke a tactile, sensuous response in the viewer, a response which can best be understood through the lens of phenomenology." v vi DECLARATION This is to certify that: I. The thesis comprises only my original work. II. Due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used. III. The thesis is less than 100.000 words in length exclusive of tables, maps, bibliography and appendices. Judith Rozner vii viii Preface In 1999, following an introduction by a mutual friend, I was invited by Minsa Craig- Burri, the widow of the artist Alberto Burri, to help her compile a biography of her life with her husband.1 I stayed and worked on the manuscript at their home at 59, Blvd. Eduard VII, in Beaulieu-sur-Mar, in the South of France for about six weeks. I had not seen the artist’s work before my arrival, and on my first encounter with it I just shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows at the high prices it commanded in the market. At that time I shared the view expressed in the International Herald Tribune on the sale of Burri’s Sacco e Rosso (1959) that sold for $1.92 million, which stated. “Aesthetics hardly accounted for the feat. A piece of discarded burlap somehow attached to a canvas painted a solid bright red at right and black at left cannot be assessed in these terms.”2 Like many who preceded him and who misunderstood Burri’s work, Souren Melikian’s view was obscured by the value he assigned to the material rather than what had been achieved using it. What he described were the components rather than the composition as a whole. During my six weeks stay, working in Burri’s abandoned studio, I was surrounded by his art, in a simple and rather austere environment, devoid of any visible accoutrements of wealth, in a home where everything was still in the place it had been left by the artist while he was alive. I was constantly warned by his widow not to touch or move anything.3 Under these somewhat unpromising conditions I discovered the beauty and the expressive power of his works. Without knowing it perhaps I had heeded a piece of advice from the composer Dorrance Stalvey, head of Los Angeles County Museum of Art 20th Century Music Department, in response to my complaint about the discordance of modern music; he urged 1 The material Minsa gave me was a pile of loose hand written pages and notes of varying sizes written at different times and not in any particular order. She was most unhelpful responding to questions as at the time she was in the midst of a legal battle with Burri’s Foundation and had to leave for Rome before the untitled work was edited. She did approve the draft before we parted and I kept a copy of it. The parts I compiled were her life with the artist and captions to photographs, while a section she titled “The Conspiracy” dealing with the legal case was left unfinished. On Burri’s death the Foundation took possession of Burri’s paternal home in Città di Castello which she was now trying to reclaim including the works stored there. According to Chiara Sarteanesi, current curator of the Foundation, these works are now unaccounted for as part went to pay the many lawyers Minsa employed until the case was settled in 2001. 2 Souren Melikian, “At Contemporary Art Sales, a mood to buy regardless of quality” International Herald Tribune, 16 February 2007. The work sold was Sacco e Rosso, 150 x 130 of 1959. It is numbered 393 in Burri’s Catalogue Raisonné of 1990. 3 Minsa Craig, died on November 6, 2003 by that time she had not published the manuscript and the works with which I had been surrounded at their home were bequeathed to her family. I have met her brother Cecil Craig and corresponded with her cousin Dr. Robert Becker of Florida who acted for the family. The works from the home in Beaulieu-sur-Mar were exhibited at Mitchell Innes & Nash Gallery in New York on November 29, 2007 to January 19, 2008. ix me to “Listen and listen some more and you will discover the beauty in it.” My “discovery” of Burri was the catalyst for my enrolment in the Art History program at Melbourne University, with the long-term aim of eventually being able to write this thesis and communicate this beauty to the world at large. x Acknowledgments. The credit for the introduction to Burri’s art and his widow, Minsa Craig, is due to James [Pasqual] Bettio, F.R.P.S., a photographer, artist, and educator, and now a retired senator of the California Senior Assembly. Pasqual befriended Burri and his wife in the 60s, when he was their neighbour on Woodrow Wilson Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills and remained Minsa’s life-long friend. In May 1995 Pasqual commenced the publication of Eye on the Arts Magazine for Park La Brea of which I was its founding editor. The title of my thesis is credited to Raechel Donahue’s column by that name published in that magazine. I also wish to thank Minsa’s brother Mr. Cecil Craig and his wife Lilian, of Tarzana, California, in whose yard Minsa’s ashes are interred, for lending me his collection of books about Burri. The research on Burri’s Grande Cretto in Gibellina, was carried out in 2006, and would not have been possible without the assistance of Salvatore Cottone who acted as my guide, driver and translator, and Prof. Jaynee Anderson’s letter that opened the door to the archives of the Gibellina Museum of Contemporary Art, and to the wonderful help extended there by its director Dr. Carolina Zummo and Tommaso Palermo. I wish to thank, Prof. Carmelo Fucarino, Prof. Rosa Maria Ponti and the author Ignazio Apolloni of Palermo, for keeping me updated with current articles about Burri published in Sicily. On a return trip in 2009, I wish to thank the late Senatore Ludovico Corrao for granting me an interview. For the research conducted from 2009, I wish to thank the following people and institutions: Dr. Anthony White, my supervisor, for lending me his research file on Burri; Associate Professor John Owens, of Tuck School of Economics at Dartmouth College, Hanover New Hampshire and his wife Janet for their hospitality and introduction to the Sherman Art Library. For the Italian leg of my research trip my thanks go to Christine Lord for her hospitality in Perugia and her assistance in the search for Burri’s early works at the Academia de Belli Arti and for updating me ever since with newspapers article. In Citta di Castello I wish to note Maria Sensi, secretary of the Palazzo Albizzini: Collezione Burri, for retrieving requested material from their uncatalogued library; to Chiara Sarteanesi, the museum’s curator, for access to the collection; to the architect Tiziano Sarteanesi, for answering my questions on his involvement in translating Burri’s design to sculptures, and again to Prof. xi Jaynee Anderson, for resolving a problem with the Foundation; My thanks to Mr. Paci of Libreria Paci in Città di Castello for his recollections on Burri’s frequent visit to his shop, for local advice and for sourcing books on Città di Castello, and to Elisa the manageress of Residenza Antica Canonica for her great assistance in daily matters. Special thanks go to the librarian of the new Venice Biennale Library, who without being asked created a 19 page bibliography on Burri of all material available in Venice that greatly added to my research. For further research I wish to thank the Getty Library in Los Angeles, and the assistance extended me by Melbourne University library. I am indebted to my friend the artist Deborah Gillman of Los Angeles for her gift of the catalogue of Alberto Burri; Combustione: Alberto Burri and America exhibition at the Santa Monica Museum of Art in 2010 and to David Stone of London for the gift of the catalogue of Burri’s exhibition Form and Matter at the Estorick Gallery in London in 2012. Without the guidance assistance and advise given me by my supervisor Dr. Anthony White, this thesis would not have come to fruition, in particular his pointing me in the direction of some lateral research, and for his fine editing of the thesis. Many thanks are due to Associate Professor, Dr. Alison Ingles, for taking me over the administrative hurdles, for her patience, enthusiasm and constant encouragement. Finally many thanks to my son-in-law Alex King and ABL for their help in the fine printing of the images. xii Table of Contents Preface....................................................................................................................................... ix Acknowledgments..................................................................................................................... xi Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: Burri and Città di Castello...................................................................................... 13 The city and the artist ........................................................................................................... 14 Burri and Città di Castello 1915 to 1946 ............................................................................