On the tenth anniversary of the death of Alberto Burri (Città di Castello 1915 - Nice 1995) the exhibition, of which this volume is the catalog, presents the work of Burri – the undoubted leading player in the Italian artistic scenario in the second half of the 20th century – as the fulcrum of that radical transformation of artistic forms and techniques which affected international production from the 1950s onwards. In the first part are presented works by artists who, contemporaneously with Burri though with different approaches, worked in the direction of a profound renewal of artistic creation, opening the path to subsequent research in spatial concepts and in technique: among these are Antoni Tàpies, Jean Fautrier, Jackson Pollock, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Cy Twombly and Franz Kline. The second part, on the other hand, takes into consideration Italian and foreign artists who, after Burri, introduced extra-pictorial elements into their compositions, changing radically the face of art in the second half of the 20th century. These include Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Piero Manzoni, Ettore Colla, Mimmo Rotella, Salvatore Scarpitta, Giuseppe Uncini, Manuel Millares, Raphael Canogar, Mario Ceroli, Arman, César, Daniel Spoerri, Jannis Kounellis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Gilberto Zorio, Giuseppe Penone and Damien Hirst.
Rome, November 2005 - February 2006
