A distinctive feature of Alberto Burri’s artistic imagery: the treatment of black in his Cellotex works.

Through a selection of thirty works created in a twenty-year time span (1972–92), including some unpublished and never before exhibited canvases from Italian private collections, this volume offers a perspective on the expressive outcomes that marked Alberto Burri’s practice 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 fixing compositional balances.