Well, there’s a blast from the past! I think that I last encountered the work of this contemporary Italian artist in 2014, when quite by chance I stumbled across a very good exhibition of his work in the north Italian town of Bassano del Grappa.* Impressed by what I saw there I bought a book about his work.
To my surprise my teacher of Italian conversation introduced Burri as a topic for discussion in this morning’s “Meet” session. To my surprise I met a rather different Burri. The work with which I am familiar I suppose could be called “painting” in that it involves the application of colour to a surface, but he is equally engaged in creating challenging surfaces on which to work, including sack-cloth and burned wood or distressed metal. The “new Burri”, however, appears to have migrated into what I gather is known as “land art”.
The work to which we paid particular attention involved the creation in concrete of a cross between a model and a plan of a town which some years previously had been destroyed completely in an earthquake. The intention appears to have been to offer a permanent memorial to a community which once had lived and thrived. We had little time in which to look at this specific piece, but it has stimulated me to explore more of Burri’s recent work.
I seem to be recovering my equilibrium after the traumas of the past week. The new computer is doing what it has to do, although software has moved on good deal in the eight years or so during which we had the old one. There is a certain amount of blundering about, but I guess it will soon feel familiar. Parts of this website are still a mess, particularly my unfinished attempts to replace the Picture of the Month section with a review of Work Sold, but one thing at a time. I’m reluctant to throw myself completely into maintenance work when ideas for painting are flowing nicely …. but more of that anon.
*For a town of its size Bassano has an excellent municipal gallery.