Sold for: $6,250

PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Mixografia Studio, Mexico City, by the present Private Collection, Vancouver

EXHIBITED
Mixografia booth, IFPDA Print Fair, Park Avenue Armory, New York, 2015
Alberto Burri's Mixoblacks, Galleria Tesori d'Arte of San Perugia, November 21, 2015 - January 5, 2016
Burri: The Permanent Graphic Work, Museo Burri della Grafica, Castello, Perugia, 2017

Italian artist Alberto Burri is known for his experimental abstract paintings in which he pioneered the use of unorthodox materials and techniques, radically re-negotiating painting as a medium. Burri began painting through a YMCA prisoner of war program after being captured by the Americans while serving in the Italian army as a medic during the Second World War. Upon his return to Italy in 1946, Burri started experimenting with alternative painting materials such as tar, sand, zinc, pumice and polyvinyl chloride glue. He also began to physically manipulate the depth of his paintings, creating protrusions and bulges by adding pieces of wood to the back of his canvasses. His breakthrough came when Guggenheim director James Johnson Sweeney saw his Sacco pieces in which he tore and stitched symbolically charged Jute sacks on the face of his paintings. Through this connection, Burri was introduced to the American art scene, where he found favour among critics. Throughout his career he continued to further incorporate materials and processes such as fire and metal in his work, pushing forward the concept of a constructed work. His direct influence can be seen in Robert Rauschenberg’s Combine paintings and in the Arte Povera movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. In 2015 to 2016, Burri’s work was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition The Trauma of Painting at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

This series of prints that Burri produced with Mixografia is among the final works he produced, and is emblematic of the artist’s late minimalist output, reflecting his belief that art is nothing but form and space. Using subtle variations in texture, depth and gradients of black, this series continues Burri’s exploration of material process and his fascination with black as a medium and for its symbolic association with endings.

The Mixografia printing process was developed by second generation print makers Luis and Shaye Remba in Mexico City. After a successful exhibition of their prints at UCLA’s Wright Art Gallery, in 1984 they opened a studio in downtown Los Angeles. The Mixografia process has helped redefine the category of an art print, as the technology allows for greater versatility of technique and application, blurring the distinctions between sculpture, painting and printmaking. The studio’s reputation has attracted major artists for collaboration, including Helen Frankenthaler, Henry Moore, John Baldessari, Frank Stella and Ed Ruscha among many others.

When using this medium, an artist begins by creating a model from any combination of materials, from which a sequence of plates are molded and cast, resulting in a reverse three-dimensional copper printing plate. Inks are then applied on the plate by hand, after which paper made in house is laid over the inked plate. The paper and the plate are then put through the press under high pressure, forcing the moist paper into each crevice of the detailed plate - allowing every three dimensional detail to register on the surface. Because the paper is still wet during the process, the ink is absorbed into the fibers, resulting in prints rich with colour and texture.

Please note: this work is unframed.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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